LexisClick Online Marketing

There aren’t many businesses nowadays who would argue that having good rankings on Google and the other leading search engines isn’t of value. However, there are only ten first page positions available in the natural listings for each search phrase and obtaining one of these top spots can take a lot of time and effort. Despite the obvious benefit of high rankings for relevant key phrases, quite a few businesses we come across still question whether going for the top search engine rankings is worth it.

If there are doubts in your mind whether going for first page search engine rankings really is essential for your business, here are 5 reasons why you should be making sure search engine optimisation (SEO) is high up your marketing agenda.

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Search Engine Optimisation Google, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO

The deal struck between Microsoft and Yahoo! Last week, which sees Yahoo!’s search facility being powered by Microsoft’s technology for the next ten years, could have big implications for the future of search.

Yahoo!’s website will use Microsoft’s Bing search engine as Microsoft endeavours to take a larger share of the search market from the über-search giant Google. In return, Yahoo! will manage Microsoft’s search advertising business. Yahoo! will receive 88 per cent for ad sales accompanying search results on its site.

Rather than stepping out of the search market, as some rivals have suggested, Yahoo!’s Yoelle Maarek told the Daily Telegraph that the deal was actually “liberating” Yahoo!, enabling its team to focus their energy on front-end search innovations instead of making back-end tweaks.

This is an exciting time for Yahoo!, who also recently announced a partnership with Twitter that enables users to access personal real-time Twitter feeds from their Yahoo! homepage. These deals are both parts of Yahoo!’s goals of becoming more social and increasing its advertising strength.

But what does this mean for the future of search? Could the Google Giant really be under threat?

In three words: We doubt it.

Google has been getting some bad press recently, and is currently subject to European Union antitrust investigations. The online community wasn’t exactly “buzzing” about Google’s entry to the social media market, and in Italy Google executives were jailed after a video of a boy being bullied was posted on the site.

The thing about Google, though, is that it is constantly innovating while competitors chase to keep up. It has recently announced that it will be buying Picknik, an online photo editing service, while the latest beta of browser Chrome includes automatic translation options and enhanced privacy. And among the flurry of bad news last week, Google also launched a new advertising service, DoubleClick for Publishers, which combines AdManager with the DoubleClick DART platform – giving batter ad placement algorithms and enhancements to tracking and reporting of ads.

I think the Yahoo!-Microsoft partnership is an interesting move and ensures that energy and innovation continue to be injected into the world of search at some pace – which can only be a positive thing for everyone.

Read the full Daily Telegraph interview with Yahoo!’s Yoelle Maarek.

Marketing General, Search Engine Optimisation Google, Online Advertising, Online Marketing, Yahoo!

Google has become the latest tech giant to come under scrutiny for allegedly breaching the European Union’s antitrust rules. It follows in the footsteps of Microsoft, penalised for its dominance of the browser market with Internet Explorer.

Today’s Daily Telegraph reports that Google is being investigated over claims that its search functions were discriminating against certain businesses in its search rankings.

Google has an approximate 90 per cent share of the UK’s search market and complaints have been received from three companies: price comparison service Foundem; EJustice.fr, a French legal search engine; and Ciao, a European shopping search engine that’s actually owned by Microsoft.

Foundem initially complained about Google in August 2009. The general feeling is that, because these three sites could offer services that compete with Google’s own, they are being demoted by Google’s algorithms.

Google themselves don’t seem particularly fazed by the threat of investigation. They offer a response on their blog, admitting that their search is “not perfect”. However, they remain confident that their business is operating fairly:

“While we will be providing feedback and additional information on these complaints, we are confident that our business operates in the interesets of users and partners, as well as in line with European competition law,” Julia Holtz, Senior Competition Counsel for Google writes on their blog.

Of course, many tech-savy readers will remember that just over a year a go the boot was on the other foot when Google joined the EU antitrust case against Microsoft’s IE browser, accusing the market of being uncompetitive. Internet Explorer was bundled with Microsoft Operating Systems, which Mozilla, Opera and Google (after launching Chrome) did not approve of.

The European Competition Commission ruled Microsoft had to offer their users more choice, and it has been announced today that from Monday (March 1 2010) users will be offered a selection of browsers instead of having IE forced upon them.

We wait with anticipation for the results of the Google inquiry, and the implications any ruling might have for search in the not so distant future.

Read the Telegraph story here.

And the Google Blog response to allegations here.

And the Browser Choice Launch Date story here.

Google Analytics, Search Engine Optimisation

If you’re new to the world of online marketing, terms such as SEO and Google Analytics can seem like little more than gobbledygook. Even if your business has had a presence on the web for some time, many people, particularly smaller businesses, don’t fully understand the terms or the services offered by the likes of Google, and thus their websites aren’t working as well as they should for their business.

In a recent article for the Sydney Herald, Valerie Khoo explored how relatively few people knew about the power of Google to help boost sales and raise the bottom line. Many were scared off by the terminology, or reluctant to admit they didn’t fully understand it. But it’s vital that business owners don’t shy away from the useful tools available to help their online marketing strategy.

At LexisClick, we specialise in SEO and know just how important it is to your business. That’s why we work with you to fully understand your business’s needs and objectives. We also have experts in website analytics, including the increasingly ubiquitous Google Analytics tool, and can help you to get the best from its features.

Stephen Bavister, Director of LexisClick, said: “We’re aware that, like anyone working in the industry, it’s easy to get caught up in the jargon – which can be confusing for people unfamiliar with the terminology. That’s why we’re happy to explain things in layman’s terms and don’t expect that you have to understand all the jargon to get the most out of online marketing. We’re conscious that it’s easy to blind people with science; we take care not to do that.”

If you’d like more information about our services, please contact us.

Read the Sydney Herald article in full here:

www.smh.com.au/news/technology/search-for-sales-success/2009/04/14/1239474853817.html

B2B Online Marketing, Google Analytics, Marketing General, Search Engine Optimisation Google Analytics, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, Website Testing

Anyone who’s serious about online marketing needs to know a thing or two about Search Engine Optimisation. Even, it emerges, the Queen. In a recent report for The Daily Telegraph, Julian Sambles, the Telegraph’s Head of Audience, conducted a review of how well the Queen’s new website would rank on search engines.

You may well think that for an institution as important as the Monarchy, they would be pretty spot on with their SEO. However, as Julian discovered, this was far from the truth. He found there were several problems with the site’s SEO (including, quite shockingly, not including the phrase “Queen Elizabeth” in the homepage’s keywords). He goes on to list the six key SEO problems with www.royal.gov.uk, including problems with the use of title tags and url structure.

This article got me thinking that it should be important reminder to any business with an online presence that they need to make sure their website is working in the best possible way for them. It’s imperative to understand the application of SEO correctly, as it is one of the most cost-effective elements of marketing strategy for many companies.

We are LexisClick Online Marketing have considerable experience in SEO for both large and small projects. To find out more about our SEO services, click here.

To read the full Daily Telegraph article, click this link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/4601422/The-Royal-Website-The-Queens-new-website-SEO-review.html

Search Engine Optimisation Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, Website Testing

YouTube could be the next SEO opportunity, as Google are planning the Google Universal Search application. This clever application will begin to be integrated directly into the regular Google search results and will search all of the Google search application and return the most relevant results.

This means that if you have a high quality video that ranks well in YouTube, you’ll have a high chance that the video will be feature in the regular Google search results.

If you haven’t done so already, now would probably be the time to test your popular search terms in Google. A case in point is searching on internet marketing news. Internet marketing news returns 27,600,000 results on Google, whereas the same search on YouTube only returns 5,270. With the differences in those results which do you think will give you the best chances to get on the first page?

Video appears to be an opportunity ripe for the picking and with YouTube beating both Yahoo and MSN in the traffic figures, it could be seen as the second search engine. If you are willing to go out there and make high quality video content for your market place it could provide you with the opportunity to get one step ahead of your competition.

Search Engine Optimisation

Google has developed their book search functionality one step further and now provide magazines in the site at http://www.books.google.com. There is a wide variety of magazines featured including everything from science journals to lifestyle magazines. The choice is currently reasonably limited but Google are planning to increase the inventory considerably over the next few months, with back catalogues from a number of publishers.

The magazine functionality is quite fully featured allowing browsing of the magazine covers, selection of the magazine to read and then browsing of scanned pages, with options to read both single pages and in double page spread mode.

The functionality of magazine search really extends the book search and opens up a whole genre of published material to the search indexes. It could be very useful online resource when an extensive inventory of titles is in place.

Search Engine Optimisation

Google CEO Eric Schmidt implied that in some respects search engines are benefiting from the economic slow down, as he announced a 26 percent increase in third quarter profits. Following year on year growth in search queries across all verticals, he believes that Google are well placed to continue their growth. He is quoted as saying.

“We believe that these results reflect the fact that as marketing budgets are squeezed, targeted, measurable ads are becoming more valuable to advertisers. As consumer budgets are squeezed, people use the web for comparison shopping to hunt for bargains online and in stores.”

However he did add a note of caution, that he thinks it will be tough even for Google to compete during the recession.

Search Engine Optimisation

Google’s market share has risen again. A recent report from the research firm Comscore revealed that Google’s share of the US search market in August was at 63%, up from 61.95% in July.

This means that it currently has over two thirds of US search traffic or nearly 7 billion of the 11 billion web searches taking place in the US.

Google leaves Yahoo and MSN trailing with 2 billion and 977 million searches respectively. The increase in Google’s market share has meant that both Yahoo and MSN have experienced decreases in their share. Yahoo’s market share decreased from 20.5% in July to 19.6% in August. Microsoft held its third position with a share of 8.3%, a decrease from 8.9% in July.

The forth position is held by Ask which really trails the pack at 4.8% of market share, but at least showing a slight increase from 4.5% in July. AOL is not far behind Ask in fifth place with 4.3% of the market share.

Search Engine Optimisation

Google appear to has once again started to change its algorithm for PageRank, leaving many web masters confused. A growing number of websites are now giving up on chasing Page Ranking and just concentrating on their search engine rankings. It appears that many sites with low a low Page Rank can show up high on the SERPs and vice versa.

Google’s last official change to the PageRank algorithm was in January 2008. As the months go by Page Rank seems to fluctuate considerably. Penalties have been given to a number of sites causing some website provider to panic as they do not know what is going on.

Search Engine Optimisation