With the rapid growth and technological advancements made through the Internet, eMarketers are estimating $39.5 billion will be generated in sales in the year 2012. According to a study by eMarketer, online advertising will continue to prove its worth in this time of economic hardships with a 23.3% increase in spending from 2011. This is nearly six billion more advertising dollars that will be spent in comparison to print ads in newspapers and magazines.

David Hallerman, eMarketer principal analyst, states “Advertisers’ comfort level with integrated marketing is greater than ever, and this is helping more advertisers – and more large brands – put a greater share of dollars online.” This is great news for us in the internet marketing industry, in which we only plan to expand our knowledge and skills in services such as search engine optimization and pay per click advertising as the demand for such services increases.

US online spending is expected to continue to grow in the next half a decade, with a mark of $62 billion anticipated by 2016. Displayed below, is a chart of the estimated spending numbers along with the percent change from the year prior.

With so much emphasis on the Internet and online advertising, those in the traditional industry of newspapers and magazines should pay close attention to this transformation. In 2011, total print ad spending was still approximately $4 billion ahead of online spending; but, displayed in the chart below you can see online spending will pull further and further ahead of the traditional channels of advertising in the years to come.

How do you feel about this Internet revolution? And how will this affect how we reach our target consumers if less and less people are reacting to the traditional means of communication [newspapers, magazines]?

Many people took time out of their day yesterday to take action against the passing of two proposed bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property  Act (PIPA). An astounding 4.5 million people signed Google’s Anti-SOPA petition, according to the LA Times. Eighteen senators pulled back their position on PIPA, including Senator Marco Rubio (co-sponsor from Florida), and SOPA co-sponsor Arizona rep. Ben Quayle also changed his stance to opposing the bill on Tuesday.

The goal of these bills is to censor your web browsing which would also potentially impose damaging effects on American business and even our very own Internet Marketing Inc. All of you last minute paper writing college students must be in for a tough week because Wikipedia is officially blacked out in an attempt to dislodge the bills from being accepted. Wikipedia is allowing you to raise awareness by putting up a fancy box that allows you to input your zip code and let your voice be heard. After submitting your zip code, information of your district officials allows you to contact them. Feel free to drop them a line, express your concern and give them your opinion on censoring your rights.

Now there is always two sides to the story. Google understands that combatting piracy is vital, but, “the most effective way to shut down pirate websites is through targeted legislation that cuts off their funding. There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs.” Also joining in is Mozilla as they changed their default home page from a blank white background to black.

What are your feelings as to how citizens have reacted to this attempt at censoring your web searches?

While everyone has been impressed by Google+ and Google’s new facial recognition system, Microsoft also announced that Bing and Yahoo! decided to form a new search engine alliance in Europe. This transition was actually already made in countries such as the United States, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, New Zealand, Peru and Venezuela. From now and on, Yahoo! organic search results both on PC and mobile will powered by Bing in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the UK as well.

 
Why did Bing and Yahoo! form an alliance?

The answer is simple. Both Microsoft and Yahoo want to improve their search results and attract more users with rich information and options to accomplish their goals.  Just like AT&T bought T-Mobile earlier this year, it is important to expand the scale of search engine. The more people search on Bing or Yahoo!, the faster and more relevant their search results will be. With this transition, Yahoo! hopes to improve the overall relevancy of its organic search results and attract more of an audience. Meanwhile, Bing wants to corroborate their new investment in their search engine results. Bing recently worked with companies like Facebook, Nokia or RIM to adopt their technology for web search services. For Bing, this transition will be a great opportunity to measure how effective their new technology is.

How might this alliance affect paid advertisements?

 For now, Bing and Yahoo! alliance won’t be as influential as it could be on search advertisements. However, you want to be well prepared for this change if organic search results are the number one important source for your website. This alliance may have a great impact on SEO strategies.

 How should you be prepared for this change?

You need to make sure whether your website is properly referred and indexed by the Bing platform. In order to do so, webmasters should register your website and sitemap in the Bing Webmaster Tools. It will give you the free analytics and adopt the best way to be shared in search engine results.

What’s next?

As for the paid advertisements, both Microsoft and Yahoo! will keep focusing on meeting marketplace and product performance benchmarks. They have been working with independent agencies such as Efficient Frontier and Marin Software and making more efforts to provide international audience quality services. Although they are still testing, they will be able to come up with updated global rollout plans for Internet marketing. They are more committed to advertisers and partners ever before. They will assist them fully through innovative changes.

On July 25th, Google  introduced  Adwords Express on their blog, which will make advertising for local small business owners  faster, easier and more efficient.  Taking relatively no time and a small amount of money, even those who are not internet savvy can create an effective online campaign in minutes. This will help to ensure that your ad is only shown to people looking for what your company has to offer.

Adwords Express – What does it do?

AdWords Express automatically manages your online campaign so when potential customers are searching for products or services in your area, your ad will appear.  Once they click on your company name, they will be directed to either your website or your Google places page – you get to decide.

Setting Up Adwords Express

Setting up your ad is simple.  First, select a category.  Next, type your Ad headline (company name).  Then, add a description (70 character meta description).  Choose if you want the searcher linked to your website or Place Page and finally, select your advertising budget. This has values based on the competition for your business, or you can set your own value.  Thats it. To watch a quick video explaining how easy it is to set up an Adwords Express account, visit:  YouTube.

As with other Google ad products, you only pay when someone actually clicks your add.  If you couple this with the recent tendencies for people to search the internet on their smart phones for products or services near their current location  (cell phone data usage doubled in 2010), a customer can find you conveniently at a very efficient price.  With Adwords Express, small businesses could gain a valuable advantage in the fierce competition for online local positioning.

SEOmoz has collected dozens of the world’s best search marketers to get their opinion on search engine ranking factors. This year, for the first time, SEOmoz presented correlation-based analysis with comments from this 132-person panel.  We also attended the webinar of these findings presented by Jamie Steven, and Matthew Peters, PhD of Applied Math.

Source: SEO Moz

Correlation and Causation Significance in Ranking Factor Analysis

To understand what the difference is between correlation and causation as the SEO Moz study presents see our examples below:

 Correlation and Causation Example:

• In summer, there is an increase in people at the beach and there is also an increase in shark attacks.

There is a correlation here because both items increase and the correlation is directly proportional.  The causation exists because the shark attacks increase since more people are in the water.

Correlation only example:

• In summer, beer sales increase. In summer, ice cream sales also increase. But beer sales do not increase ice cream sales so though there is a correlation between them there is no causation.

Thus, these factors mentioned in the SEO Moz study might be correlated to each other, but there is no proven direct cause between ranking improvement and one of these factors.

SEO Moz Ranking Factors Findings

This research shows several segments of the search-ranking algorithm such as page specific, link level features, and domain-level, keyword features.  Their Search Engine Ranking Factors study demonstrates the power of statistical analysis in SEO. This survey and statistical analysis provides us with a good idea of what the majority of internet marketers believe affects website rankings.

Since search engines do not disclose completely how their algorithm works, SEO professionals rely on each other for the best tips in ranking well. Now, with so much information out there, these tips and conclusions are subject to different interpretations.

One of the items in the study showed that websites that rank higher on search engines generally have a high volume of links or other unique features. This does not necessarily mean that those links are the reason these sites are ranked higher. Rather, it is because higher rankings and links are related or correlated.  Listed below are some other important factors that you should keep in mind when you are marketing on the internet.

Domain Level – Keywords

One of the most successful search engine marketing and optimization factors that you should remember is the inclusion of keywords throughout your website content and structure.  When your domain matches a search term exactly, this increases your chances of having a user click on your website in the results pages.  It’s important to remember, however, the more unrelated characters, especially punctuations, that are included in the domain search, the less chance the users will find your site.

The length of the domain name, the numeric characters, and the number of hyphens included the domain name all could negatively impact rankings. Try to have a domain name that includes keywords without punctuation or numbers, and no more than 3 hyphens.

 Branding

 Branding is also another important element to search engines. It’s essential that many users recognize your site. Having your brand mentioned in nonaffiliated sites, such as social media sites like Facebook or Twitter will increase your search volume. The more you spread your brand in various places on the internet, the more users will visit your website. So, get your brand out there and create your trend.

 Page Level – Keywords

 In the same way as the domain level, keywords are extremely important. When users select specific words and search for something, they will look for those specific words in the result. It’s important to have the correct set of keywords present in title tags and content on your site.  As long as your site contains the information and relevant content, which users are looking for, your site will most likely to be viewed based on the popularity of their keywords. It’s always better to have keyword rich, descriptive tags so that users can easily make out what your website is about and decided if they want to click or not.  Remember users like to read interesting, valuable, unique content.

 Page Level – Social Media

Social media is often correlated with website rankings. Indeed, social media is a great candidate for best website advertising. For example, sharing the domain on Facebook, or having Facebook comments or likes are all influential factors in spreading your brand. Twitter also helps with circulating your brand, products or services. When someone tweets about your brand, it increases varieties of the audience and authority for your brand.  Also, tweet connections attract specific individuals based on their interest and needs. Additionally, when reputable or authoritative users in the social sphere make multiple references about your site through Facebook or Twitter, your site becomes more credible and preferable among the broad audience.

Page Level – Links

Links are also extremely important especially on an individual page level. The quantity of links definitely employs the keyword as part of the anchor text. Those links must be unique and contextual. The overall page authority is of course a necessity in boosting traffic, but root domains, partial match in keywords, and unique linking naturally back up your traffic volume.

In conclusion, just because there is a connection between ranking improvements and for example Facebook likes to a page, doesn’t mean the Facebook likes caused the ranking improvement.  Instead, it could mean the content was good in itself, which contributed to it being deemed valuable to users by search engines and that is why it was ranked higher. Your best bet is to do all of these items well, but always keep the user in mind.

The simplification of the Google AdWord Keyword Tool, as expressed in the article, “R.I.P. Google Keyword Tool. Long Live SEO!“  creates a burning question to marketers who rely on this toolbar:  How does this change our process? Many have been questioning Google’s agenda behind this vast transition and it seems that monetary influence seems to be the driving factor behind it.

How will this change affect marketers?

With other search engines like Bing and Yahoo gaining popularity, perhaps it would make sense for Google to restrict its vast inventory of information. “Commercializing” the keywords available to users may simplify the average users experience, but it greatly changes the way marketers go about retrieving SEO information. With less AdWords data available, advertisers are forced to buy more Adwords and this hurry to buy will undoubtedly cause the cost to increase even more.

According to the Google blog (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/new-approach-to-how-we-work-with.html), the purpose of the newly implemented AdWords Keyword Tool is to help advertisers become more proficient and strategy-focused. Google’s new AdWord Certification Program requires advertisers to display their knowledge and capabilities through more challenging certification exams. These exams will match agencies with Google Certified Partners based on their needed criteria. Finally, Certified Partners have access to the new preferred AdWords API Pricing, which agencies must apply for and be accepted to view the Adwords API. Google emphasizes that advertisers should not be concerned with increased cost, but rather to experiment with new strategies and expand on the resources they already have.

It looks like marketers may just have to utilize other databases as well as Google Adwords Keyword Tool such as  WordStream, Trellian and WordTracker to obtain the information and research they need, since the tool now limits results. Google could be controlling what we, the user, have access to because that way, they will make more profit.  A large concern for a lot of users is the strategy that Google seems to be implementing, which gains control of its users and their capabilities as researchers. Whatever the motivation for this drastic change, it definitely changes the way online marketing will function in the future.

When writing content on the web, a good rule of thumb is to use the inverted pyramid technique, also known as Bottom Line Up Front.  This entails putting your most important point as the title and first paragraph of text in your article, and the supporting details towards the end.  Be sure to capture the attention of your users’ right at the beginning of your page, so that way they don’t need to scroll down to get the main points of your article. On the web, people tend to jump from page to page on websites, so you want to catch their attention right away.

Benefits for Readers

If a user likes what they see in your article from the beginning, they are more likely to bookmark it and read the rest of the article later. Or, if they are using a mobile phone, they can see the main point of the article and email it to themselves to read later on. (more…)

A week ago ended the last SES Chicago scheduled to occur in December as it will move to October 18 in 2010.

Although mid December is not technically Winter it was wintry enough especially compared to a much more Fall like mid October date starting next year.

The 2009 SES Chicago started on December 7th with a dusting of snow outside as Jeff Jarvis kicked it off with his interesting keynote on the link economy being part of the greater Google economy the online space is currently in.

The sessions that followed had a predominant SEO theme versus the growing social media focus of Pubcon & SMX conferences in my opinion.

Although the Google Real Time Search did evolve into a hot topic near the closing of SES as Rae Hoffman was furiously writing a great post in the speaker lounge on the real time search spamming potential.

I was particularly surprised there wasn’t much focus to online mobile marketing, beyond one session, which is sure to be a greater focus in all of the major Internet Marketing conferences in 2010.

Matt McGowan & Mike Grehan were generous enough to have me speak on a site clinic with Tony Wright & Elisabeth Osmeloski before I had to quickly take the shuttle through the snow to Midway Airway where my flight back to San Diego encountered chronic delays.

The wet snow & flight delays at this recent SES Chicago will be a distant memory when SES comes back to the United States here in San Diego February 2010.

Also this is my last post here on the Internet Marketing Inc Blog as I will be joining Resource Nation as the SEO Director there going into 2010 but be sure to check back here for the latest Internet Marketing news as well on Android at my personal site GoogleAndBlog.

In case you didn’t know, we’re in tough economic times.  These economic conditions have drastically cut budgets across the nation and world, leaving meager allowances for marketing and advertising in its wake.

Nonetheless, expectations for 2010 remain optimistic.  In a new study released yesterday, StrongMail reveals nine out of ten business executives plan to maintain or increase their marketing budgets.  Execs aren’t thinking conventionally for the new decade either, instead the survey’s respondents indicated they were open to marketing strategies that utilize the Internet and maximize their dollar.  Next year, 69 and 59 percent of business executives anticipate increasing their email and social media marketing, respectively. Another 42 percent claimed they expect to spend more on search engine initiatives, such as SEO and PPC.  The survey’s results indicate a migration to internet marketing tactics, as advertising and direct mailing initiatives are expected by less than 30 percent of execs.

Furthermore, the study showed a desire among business executives to combine the tested and proven tactics of emailing potential customers with social media.  Execs did not, however, demonstrate uniform confidence about how they would go about implementing such strategies in the upcoming year.  Instead, one out of five executives claimed they had no idea where to begin.  With more businesses seeking to establish an online presence in hopes of finding cheaper alternatives to conventional advertising, it is certain that social media marketing and search engine initiatives will play integral roles in the year 2010.

Last week, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) announced a new set of rules to govern bloggers with a connection to any company selling a product they are writing about. So, how far will the government go?  Right now, it’s unclear, but the guidelines could extend to regulate posts people make on Facebook and other social networking sites.

So what does this mean for our 1st amendment rights?
•    The government will have the ability to further dictate the parameters of individual communication via the Internet.
•    Several new questions arise about what exactly constitutes blogola and disclosure. (For those unblog-savvy types, “blogola” refers to posts made by bloggers who have been given some sort of incentive to post about a product.)  Should the disclosure be written in the post or can it be in the bloggers “about me” page? Is blogola really that different than traditional forms of advertisement and promotion?

However, here at IMI, we do believe that there are two sides to every story:

•    Libel is illegal. Defamation is illegal. Do they still happen frequently?  Yes.  Do they happen on the Web?  Way too often, but it’s not rigorously regulated online at the moment.  These new regulations will hold people responsible for their blog posts, which is a logical extension of current laws surrounding these concepts.
•    Has anyone ever posted anything nasty about you or someone you know on ripoffreport.com, juicycampus.com, etc.?  These sites continue to pop up every day, constantly grow in usage and exposure, and have significantly injured the reputations and careers of many.

So, what’s fair?  What do YOU think?  We’re interested, let us know…