Another exciting week of internet marketing news has zoomed by. Last week we saw: some great SEO analogies; how to create actionable titles; how Facebook’s IPO will impact the social network; different ways to increase your PPC click through rate; and a drop in average AdWords cost per click.

This Week in Internet Marketing 2012 02 06

3 Analogies to Help Determine the Value of SEO

SEO is not a turnkey solution, it takes time. This article offers several analogies that help explain the varying nature of SEO performance. Rankings are in constant flux, results aren’t always a reflection of controllable on-site factors. SEO requires a lot of tweaking: developing new content, creating landing pages, and identifying new off-page opportunities are just a few of the factors that drive the need for adjusting budgets.

How to Create a Title that Screams “Click Me!”

The pressure’s on to create a clickable title for this post! This article from the whiz-kids at SEOmoz talks about essential elements for creating titles. Titles that demonstrate curiosity, benefit, emotion, appearance and expectation are just some of the tips offered in the article. In the newspaper business the writer doesn’t write the headlines, it’s an art and it often goes overlooked on the internet.

Speculating on How Facebook’s IPO Could Impact its Services

Mid-last week Facebook announced that it would be going public later this year. Estimates put Facebook’s value at $75-100 Billion. Speculation on how Facebook may change has begun to spring up on the internet. This article talks about the possibility of a premium service, better mobile experience and more visible ads. It will be interesting to see how Facebook can further monetize their platform.

Strategies to Increase Your PPC Click Through Rate

This article provides some quick and easy PPC tips that we employ everyday. Tips like using extended headlines, sitelinks, harnessing your URLs as marketing copy, seasonal headlines, and constant testing will help to boost the click through rate of your pay per click ad. Conversion rate is whole other game, driving traffic by increasing CTR is only the first step!

Average Cost Per Click in AdWords Drops by 8%

This article talks about Google’s reported figure of an 8% decrease in CPC for AdWords ads. We’re sceptical about this stat because average CPC is a very generic figure. Where the cost for competitive keywords continues to grow, new players enter the AdWords space in segments  with relatively low competition – bringing the average CPC down.

More Internet Marketing Headlines

Google to Update to Top Search Queries Data

12 Steps To Optimize A Webpage For Organic Keywords

French Court Fines Google $660,000 Because Google Maps Is Free

Why The Winklevoss Twins Are Excited For Facebook’s IPO

Fake Facebook Stock Sold By Oshkosh Woman, Amidst IPO Filing

This Week in Internet Marketing 2012 01 30

3 Ways Local Businesses Can Use Pay Per Click Marketing

This article stresses the importance of PPC’s role in local marketing including ads, maps, and local listings. Elements like a captivating headline paired with a strong Google Places listing can pay dividends for local businesses. Other tips like hyper geographic targeting that allows you to bid on short-tail keywords like “dentist,” or “plastic surgeon” make this article a must read.

Enhancing Your B2B SEO Strategy

With everyone setting their budgets this time of year, it’s the perfect time to determine your SEO focus. SEO is not all off-page work, though it’s a vital component, re-examining your website structure and design can also pay huge dividends. Strategies mentioned in the article include a content strategy that includes more imagery and less text, as B2B often requires some explanation the use of visuals can often help out and help create valuable links to your content.

Analyzing Google AdWords Ads

This article was written on behalf of WordStream a paid PPC software that we use to better analyze the competition and optimize our clients’ campaigns. The article also acts as an introduction to analyzing the Google AdWords interface and offers more in-depth tips such as creating filters based on performance data. If you’re new to AdWords this article provides a great starting point.

How to Increase Your Content’s “Virality”

The experts at SEOmoz are back at again this week and this time they’re talking about how to make your content more spreadable i.e. how to give it a better chance at going viral. Tips like abandoning your traditional layout in favour of a more streamlined look geared towards showcasing your content makes this video a must watch. Simple and effective tips; bookmark this one!

Are Google+ Connections the New Backlink?

If you read our blog, you probably already know that the backlink is what set Google apart. The author of this Search Engine Land article argues that Google +1’s are the new backlinks and that local SMBs will begin to campaign aggressively for +1’s as they begin to influence local search results both paid and organic. Do you have a +1 button on your website? If not, give us a call!

More Internet Marketing Headlines

What The Holidays Tell Search Marketers

Valentine’s Day Search Trends: Love at first Search

Facebook Accounts For 80% Social Media Traffic World-wide

Google AdWords Rep Too Honest In Forums?

Facebook Post With One Million Comments Set To Break Guinness World Record

Google’s gradual ascent over the past 6 months was dealt a severe blow in December 2011 falling to 78.7% of desktop search engine market share. Yahoo! and Bing remained relatively steady staying nearly within a half percentage point of their last month’s total. Chinese search engine Baidu was the biggest winner accounting for 10.46% of overall search share according to Net Market Share.

Google Drops Nearly 6% Since Last Year

Remaining steady in the mid-to-low 80% market leader Google dipped to its lowest share of the year at 78.70%. This coincides with their decline in China.

Bing and Yahoo! Dip Slightly

Yahoo! lost just over a half percent Bing dropped just under a half percent. These are still significant portions of their user base considering the two held just 9.02% market share collectively last month.

Baidu Takes a Big Bite Out of China

Chinese search engine Baidu made significant gains climbing to a whopping 10.46% market share from only 4.41% one month prior. It’s speculated that their gains were Google’s losses.

The Top 10 Benefits of Guest Blogging

1.) Get Relevant Backlinks That Boost Your SEO!

If you’re in internet marketing, you know the value of a quality backlink. On our blog you get a follow link back to your blog, site, social media page anything so long as it’s relevant to internet marketing. We’ve got the juice to boost your site’s SEO and all the internet marketing content we have will only add fuel to the fire.

2.) Get Your Link on a Highly Trafficked Blog

We get upwards of 10,000 unique page views per month during peak seasons, with top blogs seeing hundreds of page views monthly. The sky’s the limit. Blogging on emerging stories generate serious traffic.

3.) We Promote Your Blog to Our Growing Social Network

We’ll post your blog to our 3500+ Facebook fans and tweet to our nearly 30,000 Twitter followers. Our following continues to expand and networking with other bloggers can only help it grow!

4.) Cross Promotion

We may reside in different cities, countries, continents or even hemispheres, but that doesn’t mean we can work together. We’ll include your byline with a picture, link, and brief copy highlighting who you are and what you do.

5.) Get Exposure on a Blog That Consistently Ranks in Google

Try searching for getting Google Places reviews on Google.ca, we rank second behind googleplacesreview.com or try searching Facebook precise interests, our TechWyse blog ranks fifth… behind four URLs from Facebook.com! This may vary based on your location and social influence factors, but this is the result we found, signed-out from Toronto Canada.

6.) We’ll Return the Favour

When you submit a quality blog post that makes it to Rise to the Top, we will return the favour and provide you with an original article written about one of our specialties: SEO, PPC, Social Media and Analytics.

7.) Editorial Free Reign

We want you to write about your passion. As long as it’s not “How to Build an Awesome Tree House” (i.e. irrelevant), then wow us with your take on emerging internet marketing trends. You can provide your own image or let one of our designers create one for you.

8.) Exposure to Industry Professionals and New Markets

The internet marketing community is huge and your message can only spread so far. There’s always an untapped audience online. We’ll send your blog to our 2000+ newsletter subscribers, helping you reach new readers, subscribers and even potential customers!

9.) Hook Up With the Elite

We’ll hold your blog up to high standards, but if you make the cut your name will and site will now be connected to one of Canada’s oldest and most highly regarded internet marketing agencies. We’re 10+ years and counting.

10.) Jump On One of the Hottest Link Building Trends

Not only will you be networked with our sphere of influence, but you’ll also gain likes, +1’s, retweets and social shares that are continue to play an increasingly important role in social SEO. Get your company commenting, too. Our comment links are follow, so if you have other sites, or even specific posts you want to plug, then feel free to comment away!

Do We Have Your Attention?

If you’re interested please email guestblog@techwyse.com with the following information:

• Your original blog entry (all posts will be Copyscaped)
• Full name
• Your website URL
• Company/Site name
• Picture or logo (optional)
• Byline highlighting who you are and what you do
• Tell us whether you’d be interested in having us write for your blog

This Week in Internet Marketing 2012 01 16

10 Examples of Awesome Link Bait

Most of us know that high quality links can boost your search engine rank, so how do websites get people to link to them? One way is by creating link bait. Link bait can be anything from a controversial blog, a useful tutorial to a well done infographic. The geniuses at SEOmoz have put together a list with comprehensive stats on each example, inspiring!

Outsmarting Your PPC Competitors on High-Stakes Keywords

This article outlines some very clever strategies that work well when you have a few players bidding on expensive keywords. Tips like exploiting the AdWords scheduler and discovering when your competitors lower their bid prices throughout the day can work really well. Other strategies like capitalizing on advertisers who’ve spent their daily budget after running the accelerated delivery method (where their ads are shown every time until the budget is spent). There’s a lot of cutting edge tips in this article, highly recommended if you’re running high-cost PPC in a niche space.

Google Gives Twitter’s @ Symbol the Cold Shoulder

Twitter is crying foul over Google’s refusal to index the @ symbol. So when people search e.g. @WWE The WWE’s Twitter page ranks below WWE’s Google+ page. Whereas the + operator turns up results for WWE’s Google+ page. Google argues that they haven’t been given access to Twitter’s private pages. Conversely, WWE’s Twitter page ranks higher in Bing, Yahoo and AOL’s results.

Facebook Users Click on Links Twice as Much as Twitter and Google+ Users

A study from data analytics company Chitika found that the click through rate on Facebook links were twice the rate than that of Twitter or Google Plus. My own personal speculation would be that the lack of image and character limit hurts Twitter in this respect and the infancy of Google+ just doesn’t create enough content to click on, while Facebook’s wealth of content and image previews for links creates a higher CTR.

How to Streamline Your Keyword Research

Tips such as listening to your customer, asking them what they do and encouraging them to speak in their natural vernacular will help you to discover areas they may need to address when describing their products online. The theme of the article (it has proven true with our own clients) is: listen to your clients and use your expertise to add variations and modifiers that will match the keywords people are searching for.

More Internet Marketing Headlines

Facebook’s Buggiest Page Was Created on Purpose

Best Practices For Mobile Site SEO

5 Proven Ways to Generate Revenue From Facebook

Google vs. Facebook: The “Search Plus Your World” Saga Continues

Better Page Titles in Search Results

Social is the New Word of Mouth

Facebook’s “talking about this” metric is a nod to what social media really is: a massive network for word of mouth recommendations. You don’t have to share your status to let others know what you’re doing anymore. Facebook is moving in the direction of publishing more than just your like and comment activity. By installing apps like the Washington Post Social Reader, your friends can now see that you’ve read an article, not simply that you’ve liked, shared or commented on it.

The Fracturing of Search Results

Search results are now highly geared towards a user’s location and social network. Browsing habits still play a major factor. All of this leads to fractured search results, where some sites may rank, while others don’t depending on who the searcher is.

Other key shifts will include:

• The inclusion of socially relevant posts
• The rise of PPC as the core strategy for online marketing
• New challenges for SEO
• Fresh Content will become ever more important, if you don’t have a blog, get on it. Use this guide to help you.
• Local search and reviews, Google Places and Yelp will continue to influence buying decisions.
• Mobile search will be influenced by location, companies with mobile websites will see better conversions from organic and paid traffic.

Google Quality Continues to Get Better

• The quality of referring links will need to be high. Google will not give credence to poor quality backlinks, link farms and link wheels are a thing of the past. Quality will outweigh quantity.
• Search results will contain high quality, fresh content that’s been shared.
• Sites with great user experiences may rank higher, Google can analyze this if the site has Google Analytics installed.
• Websites with high CTRs, low bounce rates and original content will have an edge
• An integrated strategy will be needed in order to rank organically – UI, Social, PPC, SEO, Content Strategy.

Referring Sites Will Continue to Proliferate

• Sites like portals, destination guides and niche resources will be a valuable source of traffic. Don’t be surprised if these sites pop up overnight, as social media is now a primary springboard for many start-up sites looking for traffic.
• Referring sites are growing more quickly than your competitors, actively research them and get linked to.
• Consumers will continue to research in more places, and these sites will increase in importance as they provide links, rank for related terms and influence buying decisions.
• Search engines will continue to reward sites that are present on highly trafficked, socially connected sites.

That’s a wrap! Authentic, original content, is key to your online marketing success in 2012 and moving forward. Produce original content and spread it through social networks. Google’s algorithm will reward you for hard work e.g. consistent content creation, social updates, networking with referring sites and building organic links. Sprinkle in a little PPC and you’ve got a recipe for success!

This Week in Internet Marketing 2012 01 09

ComScore Reports more Using Apps over Mobile Browser

ComScore, a leader in measuring the digital marketplace has just released the results of their latest data-driven research, which identifies the rise in popularity of mobile apps. Smartphone users are downloading and using apps more than ever before. In an age where buying products and services are completed while waiting for the traffic light to change, more businesses should consider mobile application development a priority in their 2012 strategy.

Waging War against Mobile Apps? How Physical Retail Locations can Fight Back

While online sales for holiday shopping are expected to grow 15%, physical retail locations are predicted to see a minimal 3% rise in revenue. The brick and mortar shop has been put on the defensive and needs to defend against the convenience and prices that online stores offer. This is particularly true for competing with online giants such as Amazon, and their offer to further discount products, through their mobile app. This has to be accomplished without cutting into profit margins and this article will tell you how.

The Future of Facebook for 2012

Facebook’s IPO (initial public offering) will be the biggest public offering of 2012. The company is rumored to have a $100 billion valuation, which places the social networking giant in the top three American IPOs for highest amount raised.

We are the Internet

First the web was human driven then it was programmed by algorithms. With social media becoming such a prominent component of what propels the web the information that makes the internet, algorithms and search engines smarter, is powered by people. This fascinating article explains how the Internet makes us smarter, and we feed the Internet, therefore contributing to its intelligence. We may not have robots to do our chores but we have them to fuel our knowledge.

Social Trends for 2012

To highlight the ever-growing importance of social media, this article offers five 2012 trends in the social world. This includes the increasing prominence of social media and how it has begun to impact Google’s algorithm.  Also included is how customers and employees are becoming an extended part of every company’s marketing team and Daily Deal services receiving preference in the Google engine.

More Internet Marketing Headlines

10 Search & Website Usability New Year Resolutions for 2012

Facebook Launches In-App Currency

How Much Is A Click Really Worth?

No More World Wide Web in Iran?

Steve Jobs Doll Can Be Sold After All

This Week in Internet Marketing 2012 01 03

The Most Popular Analytics posts of 2011

We do our best to keep you up-to-date on all the latest internet marketing news. Because it’s impossible to bring you every article, it’s always a good idea to throw in a “best of” list every now and then. This week we bring you Search Engine Land’s most popular Analytics posts of 2011. Included are: How To Integrate Google Analytics & YouTube and How To Measure The True Return On Your Ad Spend. Valuable info within.

The Changing Face of SEO in 2012

2011 was a big year for SEO where we saw big companies like JC Penney and Forbes get penalized by Google for using Black Hat SEO tactics. This article by Business2Community addresses the main challenges for SEOs and predicts that 2012 will divide SEO into two camps: the Technical SEO and the Inbound Marketer. The new rules of SEO set forth by Google will push for a hybrid of content marketing, technical SEO and social media.

Are You Ready for the Major Digital Marketing Trends for 2012?

Search Engine Land has put together a thorough list of internet marketing predictions for this year. This list includes improvements to Google AdWords such as improving matching algorithms to make better use of ad inventory, new ad formats, incentives to increase quality score. Mobile will also be another major trend in 2012, with the cross-platform compatibility of mobile sites outpacing dedicated apps.

2011: A Year of Milestones on Twitter

It seems (these days) that when any major world event occurs, Twitter quickly becomes a go-to source of information for protestors, onlookers, and journalists. Some of the major milestones for the micro-blogging platform included: localized trend searches, the purchase of TweetDeck, and Twitter Analytics. Visit Mashable to view the full slideshow.

YouTube’s Top Videos of 2011

Even though we are already in the new year, it’s always fun (and completely unproductive) to look back at the most popular videos of 2011. This year’s top 10 included talking twin babies, Nyan Cat and of course everybody’s favourite one hit wonder Rebecca Black with her song “Friday.” 2012 looks to be another huge year for online videos, maybe it’ll be the year your company makes a splash on YouTube.

More Internet Marketing Headlines

FedEx Uses YouTube To Issue Delivery Driver Apology

Company Sues Former Employee Over 17,000 Twitter Followers

Being Nice Isn’t a Marketing Tactic. Or Is It?

Delete All Of Your Tweets With TwitWipe

Best Google Doodles of 2011

This Week In Internet Marketing 2011 12 26

Is There a Hard and Fast Rule for Keyword Density?

There was a time when search engines looked at a page’s keyword density and weighted results in favour of those pages that were stuffed with keywords. According to Google’s Matt Cutts those days are long over. It turn out that Google will pick up on a keyword the first couple of times its used, but if you over do it, it could actually end up hurting your ranking. Watch the video and be on your way to becoming an SEO expert!

Facebook Ads In The News Feed About To Be A Reality

The days of Facebook ads only appearing off to the right of the page may soon be over. Although sponsored stories (ads which appear “your friend” likes this) have been around for some time, they may be making their way into the newsfeeds of you and your friends. This follows a similar path of Twitter’s promoted tweets appearing in a user’s timeline.

New Tools and Controls to Manage Your Google+ Pages

Google+ business pages launch without a whole lot of fanfare back in early November, in fact a lot of the features that we wanted to see weren’t there. The engineers on the Google+ Pages team have answered some of the most popular requests including: multiple admin access, engagement notifications and unified +1 and circle counts. 2012 is an important year for Google+ where it will either prove itself as a useful counterpart to Facebook or go the way of Google Buzz.

The Most Popular SEO Posts Of 2011

As if reading This Week In Internet Marketing wasn’t enough to fill your brain with SEO knowledge, the whip-smart team at Search Engine Land has compiled some the year’s most popular SEO-related posts. Some highlights include: The Clickthrough Rate Equation In Organic Search and How To Take Your Keyword Research To A Higher Level. Good summary, you could definitely spend a few days sinking your teeth into this one.

Yahoo! Search Trends: Holidays 2011

Although Yahoo may only be the second most popular search engine (by a mile). They still have a mountain of search behaviour data to draw from and with that, comes their top holiday search trends for 2011. Apparently searches for artificial Christmas trees are way up (622%), and so are searches for “Christmas Cactus.” Is it just me, or am I the only one who feels left out of the latter trend? Happy holidays!

More Internet Marketing Headlines

Yahoo’s Bay Bridge Billboard Removed After 12-Year Legacy

The Best of 2011 – Posts & People Who Rocked Our World

Why You Need Google+ Business Pages For Online Reputation Management

Google+ Hits 150 Million Active Users

YouTube’s Top 10 Ads Of 2011

Mobile and Ultraconnectivity

Every year it’s said that “this will be the year of mobile!” Well, moving into 2012, it certainly will be (again!). When breaking down mobile device growth year over year, there is continued growth in a) the adoption rate for consumer’s for both tablets and smartphones, b) advertising spend and c) technological developments.

The Demand for Location & Local Content

With the evolution of mobile, GPS capabilities have become widespread, and so has the interest and demand for local content. People will continue to search for things that are most relevant to them given their context: the city they’re in, their location within the city, and the people that they interact with. We really are at the cusp of data integration, segmenting different data sources and being able to truly understand the intention and context when people are searching, giving us the ability to present them with information that’s useful where and when they need it. When looking at it from a service and marketing perspective, it’s very likely that when you’re pushing the right content, at the right moment, in the right location, you are removing steps that need to be made to ultimately convert a user into a buyer.

Social is Everywhere

Social media penetration is at its highest point ever. It’s available to over 75% of the world (86% in Canada) and people are already “socially active” as much as possible. The next evolution will be to make the time spent throughout social media much more efficient and faster overall through social apps. If you consider the data related to overall mobile phone usage, this makes sense, especially because search is the top activity of mobile users. Social networking is a close second.

It’s important to remember that SoLoMo isn’t a product in itself, it’s a way to access and interact with content. It first needs optimized and accessible content to deliver. Content producers and brand owners aren’t oblivious to the opportunity for growth and early adopter capitalization that SoLoMo offers. Smartphones themselves are adding various levels of personalization through voice activation and dictation applications, and we will only continue to see that “voice in your phone” adopted and connected through other complimentary products, as well. Imagine you’re walking by an electronics store and you hear your phone calling you by your first name, reminding you that the new TV you were looking at is only on sale for one more day.