Cloud computing is responsible for a large amount of untapped marketing opportunities for businesses of all sizes. We tend to think about enterprise level businesses when we think of cloud infrastructures and implementations, but in reality, small businesses have just as much reason to turn to the cloud than the big companies, if not more.
Google Releases Savings Calculator Tool to Push Google Apps
As Google continues its push to get businesses using Google Apps, the company has now introduced the "Go Google Cloud Calculator". This is a tool that lets you enter your company’s name, tell it how many employees you have, and gives you Google’s estimates for how much money you could save, how much more productive you will be, how much more storage you will get, how many hours you will save, etc.
Mobile and Location Fueling the Design of Future Search
There’s no question that location is playing an increasingly great role in how people obtain and share information. We recently looked at where location fits into the SEO equation.
Are You Blogging Within Your Fair Use Rights?
With all of the struggles and controversies surrounding the news industry these days, there is a lot of confusion out there about what falls under fair use and what doesn’t. The more savvy bloggers who have been in the game for a while usually have a better grasp on the concept, but there are still plenty of others who aren’t so well versed. After all, anyone can start a blog, and not everyone comes from a news or legal background.
Startups Shouldn’t Necessarily Count on the Twitter Strategy
Early in the week, Twitter revealed its new "Promoted Tweets" feature, or ad platform (though the company doesn’t like calling it this), and essentially its long awaited business model. The jury is still out on how successful a business model this will be, but it’s already created a huge amount of buzz, and Twitter has grown enormously up until this point without a business model.
Journalism Doesn’t Need Saving, Maybe Delivery Just Needs Tweaking
The state of the news industry continues to be brought up on a frequent basis. Is journalism dying? Should publications put up paywalls? Should they block search engines and news aggregators. These are all questions that continue to be brought up repeatedly.
Did You Think Making Money Blogging Would Be Easy?
Ever since blogging became popular, people have been trying to make a living at it. A few have been successful, but many eventually give up, or if they actually do continue to blog, they aren’t making anything. In a session I attended about blogging at SXSW last month, one of the panelists asked the question, "how many of you have a blog?" Nearly everyone in the room raised their hands. Next, they asked, "how many of you are earning with your blog?" Very few people raised their hands.
iPad Impresses More as a Symbol Than a Device
Right now, it’s looking like the iPad’s strength is more about what it represents to the industry, more than the device itself. It’s about what mainstream computing may be turning into.
Is the iPad the future of computing? Share your thoughts.
Quantify Value of Micro-Conversions to Avoid Bad Decisions
As online marketing and search engine marketing in particular have evolved over the years, more and more metrics and data sources have become available to marketers. This is a great thing for analyzing campaigns and strategies, learning from them and improving upon them. However, all of this data can get extremely overwhelming, which is why it’s important to have strategies for the analytical process itself.
Search for More Search Marketing Opportunities
Since Bing launched last year, it has placed a great deal of emphasis on giving answers beyond just the "ten blue links." In reality, the major search engines each offer much more than these ten blue links (the standard of the old days of search). Google, Yahoo, and Bing each offer a variety of ways for users to obtain the information they’re looking for through various search options, blended search results, and other products altogether.
How Important is Your Domain Name to Your Brand?
How important is your domain name to you brand? Most online businesses would probably consider it to be quite important, and with good reason. Sometimes before searching, customers may simply opt to go to the "yourbrandhere.com" URL simply because it makes sense. Now, sometimes that URL is already taken, and for start-ups, that’s something to consider in itself.
As SERPs Get More Complicated, Focus on Relevant Elements
At SES Chicago last year, Yahoo VP of Consumer Products, Larry Cornett suggested that blended search results bring businesses a broader range of SEO opportunities, a chance to take control of their brand, and a potential increase in qualified clicks. While these blended results can tend to divert users away from organic listings, as SEO Dave Naylor pointed out at that same conference, Cornett does have a point.
Marketing Should Be About “And” Rather Than “Or”
You’ll often notice than when a new web service or marketing strategy gets starts getting some buzz, it will often be referred to as a "_____ killer", when in most cases this turns out to be greatly exaggerated or just plain wrong. For marketers, it’s important not to get too caught up in this kind of mentality, because as long as you have an audience and they can still be reached through some channel, that channel is alive and well.
Google’s Matt Cutts Talks Caffeine, PageRank, PuSH, Buzz, and Much More
In case you missed it, WebProNews streamed a live interview with Google’s Matt Cutts from SMX West in Santa Clara. It’s hard to narrow down the discussion to a singular topic, but here are some of the things touched upon in the video:
Talking Bing/Yahoo Integration with Yahoo Search
As you know, Microsoft and Yahoo were recently granted regulatory approval on their search and advertising deal, and we’ve discussed what this might mean for search engine optimization. WebProNews stopped by the Yahoo Headquarters in Sunnyvale before heading to SMX West in Santa Clara this week, and talked with Shashi Seth, Sr. VP of Yahoo Search Products about the deal, how it will be integrated, and timing, among other things.
SEO and Social Media Matter for Press Coverage
When businesses think about search and social media, a great deal of the time, they are thinking about traffic, customer engagement, and brand awareness. While these are all good things to consider, there may be more to that last one that you have spent much time thinking about.