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The Life and Near Death of DMOZ
FedEx Marketing Mistake!
Top 10 dot-com flops
Web and Satellite Radio Listeners are Highly Active Consumers
What Is Niche Marketing and Can it Help Me?
Get your site noticed and build that traffic!
SEO Linking Strategies
Search Engine Strategies for Success: 2006
Web Page Optimization
Wanna Promote Your Website to China Region Via Search Engines?
Three Steps to Improved Search Engine Rankings
Improve your Search Engine Ranking
Search Engine Optimization: Snake Oil or Science?
6 Reasons Why In-House Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is Ineffective?

ODP - Open Directory Project - SearchEngineProjects

The Life and Near Death of DMOZ

By Jim Hedger

The casket was all but closed on the venerable Open Directory Project (ODP, or dmoz.org ).

A December 16 blog post by an ODP founder, Rich Skrenta,"DMOZ had 9 lives. Used up yet?" , suggested that the directory at DMOZ is now, like Marley´s ghost, deader than a doornail. DMOZ was down and, for over a month and a half, it looked like it was down for the count.

In reality, DMOZ is not dead though the rumours of its demise were not exactly exaggerated either. Because this six-week unscheduled outage followed several years of consumer dissatisfaction, lagging editorial energy, and layoffs at AOL, many made the logical assumption that the plug had been pulled.

While the Website still functions as a searchable directory, its editing functions have only just been restored after six weeks of downtime. Since the last week in October, editors and submitters have been greeted by versions of a customized DMOZ 404 page. DMOZ was basically a dead directory referencing over 4 million Websites spanning nearly 600,000 categories. Though editing has been restored, it is still not possible to submit new sites.

Even if webmasters could submit new sites, chances are they would not receive timely editorial attention. For the last few years, webmasters have complained about the now legendary backlog of sites awaiting review and inclusion. It can take months or even years for spelling mistakes to be corrected and an enormous number of the 590,000 categories that make up the directory do not even have editors. Though many webmasters consider the Open Directory useless because of that backlog, it still swings a big weight in the search sector.

The greatest success of the Open Directory Project stems from the free database access offered to any other search entity. The majority of search engines and directories use the ODP's RDF-esque data-dump to help populate their databases. As every ODP listing is human edited, Google and other search engines have tended to treat ODP references as trustable sites. Carrying a PageRank of 8, links from the ODP continue to be considered Google-Gold by SEOs. Other search engines receiving results from the DMOZ directory include Ask, Yahoo and AOL. Clearly the ODP remains an important entity in the search space.

It has certainly earned its status as an important entity. The Open Directory Project has a long history that dates back to 1998. Since the day it went online as GnuHoo in June 1998 it has played a crucial, defining role in the evolution of the search sector and of the Internet.

Gnuhoo appeared on June 5 1998 in response to the rapid growth of the web. The number of new sites coming online in 1998 far exceeded the capacity of Yahoo's editorial staff that was rumoured to number less than 200. Gnuhoo co-founders Richard Skrenta and Bob Truel believed they could create a better directory using an unlimited supply of volunteer editors than Yahoo could with their limited team of professional editors.

They were right. NewHoo grew faster than Yahoo did in the last half of 1998. Less than a year after it went online, the all-volunteer project had acquired 8,000 editors and over 430,000 Websites. By then it had undergone two name changes and had been acquired by one of the largest emerging online entities.

Within days of being online, Gnuhoo had attracted enough attention to force a rapid succession of name changes. First the Free Software Foundation objected to the use of the term GNU after a Slashdot article misconnected the two projects. Gnuhoo was thus renamed Newhoo. A few days later, Yahoo raised issues about the use of the suffix "Hoo". At the same time, Netscape Communications Corporation opened a dialogue with Skrenta about acquiring the upstart directory project as a major asset during their competitive phase with Microsoft.

Promising to respect the founders' original intentions to keep the site a non-commercial entity, Netscape acquired the directory for $1 million in October 1998 and renamed it the Open Directory Project. ODP data was released freely under the Open Directory Licence. A month after Netscape bought ODP, America Online (AOL) purchased Netscape. AOL agreed to honour the Open Directory Licence, formalizing it in a Social Contract with the web community. This marks the real start of the ODP's rise. By early spring 1999, most of the major search engines were pulling data from the ODP.

1998 and 1999 was a special time in the history of the Internet. Billions of dollars were invested as eager speculators and venture capitalists moved to cash in on the promise of instant riches. Start-up companies with no functional business plans became multi-million dollar concerns overnight. The first generation of instant online millionaires was spawned and talk of breaking the traditional business cycle was taken seriously. The bottom was about to fall out of what had become a stratospheric marketplace but at the time, very few saw the danger through the haze of the hype. When the sky fell, it fell hard. In a tangential way, the ODP was directly involved. Though it is technically a non-profit society, ownership of the ODP is considered a business asset.

The trigger event that led to the crash of 2000 was the most significant deal in the history of global publishing. In January 2000, less than a year after it had acquired Netscape and DMOZ, AOL purchased the Time Warner media empire for approximately $160 Billion in an all-stock deal. The excess of that deal, one in which an upstart tech firm absorbed the largest brick and mortar information and entertainment business in the world, made a number of analysts look at the silliness of it all. Within three months, the shares AOL used to buy Time Warner would be worth a fraction of their value when the deal was struck.

The Tech-crash of 2000 had a cascading effect across the web. Most, if not all, of those new businesses without business plans were quickly put out of business as the value of those firms had declined and no new sources of investment were forthcoming. Online properties supported by shareholders, such as Yahoo and AOL/Time Warner, were in sudden desperate trouble. 18-months of tech sector doldrums set in as the investment world started looking for a revenue source that could sustain the staggering costs of the sector.

A new search engine appeared on the scene around this time. It had a funny name and appeared to disregard the dominant portal or directory structure favoured by most search engines. Hidden behind its sparse front page and childish logo was a revolutionary way of producing what everyone agreed at the time were extraordinarily accurate search results. The age of Google began in late 2000. A year later, the power of viral marketing had propelled Google into the big leagues, making it a serious challenger to AltaVista, Lycos and Yahoo.

Google populated itself in part by using DMOZ data. In its earliest years, Google used DMOZ as its directory, displaying virtually mirrored results. Google's unique method of judging page content by the number and value of incoming links made a listing at the Open Directory critically important for SEOs and webmasters. As Google's popularity and reach grew, the value of a DMOZ link grew. Because ODP listings are human reviewed, Google has traditionally tended to trust them, thus producing stronger placements faster. Between 2001 and into 2005, Google was responsible for over 80% of all organic search listings either directly or through feeding competitors such as Yahoo and MSN.

When Google figured out how to make the paid-advertising system Overture was using make oodles of money, all hell broke loose again and we rapidly advanced to where we are today.

When Google became the most important search engine, search marketers began targeting the Open Directory with site submissions, often with several sites for the same company. As one ODP editor put it, "We nev�r asked to be used by Google like this." As the decade progressed, new methods of creating web documents (html editors, CMS, blogs, etc...) spurred another period of extraordinary growth that far surpassed the ability of DMOZ editors to keep up.

A classic dilemma existed. A link from DMOZ could mean the difference between weeks and months waiting for a good placement at Google. The ODP was nev�r supposed to have such influence. The relationship Google's algorithm created between itself, the Open Directory and webmasters wanting a DMOZ listing ended up threatening the open editorial policies originally envisioned. It was difficult to enlist new editors when many applicants were primarily motivated by the ability to insert their own sites.

Though it boasts almost 75,000 editors, it also contains over 590,000 directory categories and sub-categories. The Open Directory is enormous and continues to be driven by volunteers. One of two things happen; either its volunteer editors deal with an average of 8 categories each or some categories will have to go unedited. The latter tends to happen more often than the former and the public and search engines are left with a less than complete directory to draw from. Such has been the case for the past two or three years.

In their defence, the ODP editorial staff would suggest that the majority of sites they continue to see are junk advertisement pages designed for SEO or PPC purposes. Similar comments appear in any number of threads found at the Open Directory Resource Zone, a public chat forum designed to promote communication between editors and users.

With a massive backlog of unreviewed submissions and a huge demand from search marketers hungry for the rankings boost expected from a DMOZ listing, many felt the ODP was becoming an elite, secretive society. Editorial applicants reported their requests were going unanswered and allegations of corruption amongst rouge editors emerged. By end of 2005, the ODP appeared to be in total disarray with more sites in the review process than were actually in the directory. Throughout 2006, the ODP has become less and less relevant to the search marketing community until, towards the end of the year, it was gone.

Most of the directory appears to be functioning again though it is likely a version carped together using data from the last RDF file. When the server at AOL crashed, it took most of the current directory and all of its records with it. A number of meta editors have spent the past six weeks rebuilding the directory with the help of a few friendly AOL techs. The submit a site feature is, as of this time, not functioning.

Outwardly, the importance of the Open Directory was obvious but the greatest contributions to the Internet from the Open Directory team come from the people involved with the movement and the open-source philosophy that has descended from them.

When Netscape absorbed it, the Open Directory Project became part of an amazingly influential environment. Founded by legendary Marc Andreessen, Netscape was already part of the Open Source movement. Netscape founded the Mozilla Foundation in January 1998, nearly a year before it acquired DMOZ. The Mozilla Foundation introduced and marketed the Firefox browser.

The ODP was arguably the first successful long-term project that could fall under the general heading Web2.0. Its philosophy set the stage for the Wikipedia and other community based Websites. Unlike other collaborative projects that predate it, the ODP was a truly grassroots endeavour. Participants didn't need to be extraordinary technicians; they just had to be able to understand the editing techniques used by their community.

Though rumours of its death are obviously exaggerated, complaints about its demise are not. The ODP is a wonderful entity, but the power it inadvertently exerts is far greater than its ability to edit itself. Many have suggested the ODP should shut its door for good but perhaps this downtime has given its meta-editorial collective a chance to consider its role in the search community.
About the Author: Search marketing expert Jim Hedger is one of the most prolific writers in the search sector with articles appearing in numerous search related Websites and newsletters, including SiteProNews, Search Engine Journal, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. He is currently Senior Editor for the Jayde Online news sources SEO-News and SiteProNews. You can also find additional tips and news on webmaster and SEO topics by Jim at the SiteProNews blog.

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FedEx Marketing Mistake!

Big Guy vs. Little Guy

What is happening?

Mr. Jose Avila's, a software developer, moved to Arizona. With no money for new furniture, he decided to make furniture out of FedEx boxes until he could buy some real furniture for his new place. The results were kind of funny; he posted his creations on FedExFurniture.com.

Guess What?

After FedEx found out about FedExFurniture.com, they tried to force him to shout down the web site or sue him if he didn't take down the site. I am sure this case will be in many text books for our kids as missing marketing opportunities.

I should motion that FedEx has all the legal rights for its products and logos; however FedEx could position FedExFurniture.com as a new marketing and advertising tool not as threat. FedEX could make a contest about:

What else you can make with FedEx box?
How can you use FedEx boxes in your day today life?

Is all about branding and exposing your logo. FedEx missed a big opportunity.
You can read more about this issue at:

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Top 10 dot-com flops

By Kent German
(courtesy of MSN.com)

The most astounding thing about the dot-com boom was the obscene amount of money that was spent.

Zealous venture capitalists fell over themselves to invest millions in Internet start-ups; dot-coms blew millions on spectacular marketing campaigns; new college graduates became instant millionaires (albeit on paper) and rushed out to spend it; and companies with unproven business models executed massive IPOs with sky-high stock prices.

Of course, we all know what eventually happened to this world. Few of these companies actually made enough money to recoup that cash, and when their investors fled to the hills, these start-ups died dramatic deaths. These are the celebrity victims of the new-economy bust. More
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Web and Satellite Radio Listeners are Highly Active Consumers

(courtesy of Media Research)

Web radio listeners (those who regularly or occasionally listen) are not only growing in numbers but they are also a highly active group of consumers with above average levels of purchase intentions and are early adopters of other new media options according to an analysis by BIGresearch of their most recent Simultaneous Media survey.

Typical web radio listeners are:

Between 18 and 44 (74.5%)
Male(59.6%)
Well paid, with an average household income of $54,334
7.2% of adults 18+ regularly listen to web radio (approximately 16 million)
23.4% occasionally listen to web radio (approximately 52 million.)

The media which have the greatest influence on their apparel purchases are:

Magazines
In-Store Promotions
Broadcast TV
Newspaper Inserts
Cable

However, the media which index the highest for apparel purchase influence are blogging, instant messaging, picture phones and radio. The radio formats they prefer are rock, alternative, oldies, top 40/pop and talk.

The survey reports that Satellite radio listeners are not only not average, but they are a "Lucrative Consumer Group." BIGresearch reports insights on the consumption power of this small, but lucrative group of consumers (4.3% of 18+ population, approximately 9.5 million):

Gender: Male - 56.1%, Female-43.9%
Average Age: 42.7; 25-54, 66%
Average Household Income: $77,329
Dog Ownership: 68.5%

Active lifestyle leisure activities, with top 5 being:

Watch TV - 68.3%
Listen to Music - 66.4%
Surf the Net - 65.0%
Dining Out - 63.8%
Read Books - 59.9%

Satellite radio listeners suffer from the following health conditions more than the general population:

Acid Reflux
Allergies
Arthritis
Depression
Headaches/Migraines (probably from all the leisure time activities)
Heartburn/Indigestion
Heart Disease
Insomnia
Overweight (from too much dining out)

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What Is Niche Marketing and Can it Help Me?

(courtesy of entireweb.com)

Niche marketing is finding small, unused areas of the market that occupy a special area of demand. A small corner of the world that huge corporations have no interest in. These little segment of the market can have a big impact on the niche marketer. You won't have to worry about the big conglomerates trying to squeeze you out because the customer base won't be big enough for them to even care about. They want to attract large crowds and make huge sales off one giant Website.

Try to set up a Website selling computers. Could you ever compete with Dell and Gateway? No! They have an advertising budget that is bigger than your annual income. There is no way to touch that market.

How about a Website selling craft items. Do you think you could compete in that field? Probably. There aren't any big corporations fighting for your customers. Would you be able to make a lot of money selling craft items? Some money but no where near as much as if you sold computers. The difference is you would actually be able to attract customers to a craft site. and since there isn't a lot of competition in this field, you will be able to keep your customers for years to come.

How much could you expect to make from this type of site? Some where around $50 - $100 a month. Nice but not great.

The trick with niche marketing is to set up one niche site after another. Build a small but loyal customer base for each site. If you were to make $100 off one site. Think about the potential of having 10 sites.

Ten little Websites each bringing in around $100 each month. Not bad. Now build another site and another one and another one...

Fifty little Websites each bringing in around $100 each month. Hmm... This is looking pretty good.

Is niche marketing really needed in a world full of Websites competing for income? Those who know how the system works will answer "YES INDEED", because niche marketing is the only system capable of filling up a gaping hole in the market by catering to the unsatisfied needs of a smaller group of customers.

Needs that virtually go unnoticed by the big leagues. Through niche marketing, you will be able to gain a foothold in the market by being a needle in a haystack. Small and inconspicuous Websites that attract small groups of people that need exactly what you have to offer.

There are an endless supply of tiny markets out there that the big companies with their big budgets are never even going to consider. This is where you want to set your goals. Little by little you could build a gigantic internet empire and just sit back an watch the money roll in.

But how are you going to find the time to research and build all these little Websites? This is where you are in luck.

2006 seem to have become the year of niche Websites. You can buy already made Websites that you just upload to your server and start selling the products.

There are many membership sites that you can join for $50 to $70 each month. For your membership price you will usually receive 3 new niche Websites each month. Some of these sites have content and graphics only and you have to create the layout. Some of these offer plug and play Websites that are set to use as is.

You will also see many Websites that are offering individual niche Websites that you can buy one at a time. Buy what you want when you are ready for another site. These pre-built Websites are selling on an average for $15. Money well spent considering you are saving yourself a month or more in the time it would take for you to build one of these sites.

All of these types of ready to go sites that you can buy are sold in small quantities. You can find sites that will only sell 100 of any given niche. I have seen this limit go as high as 750. These limits are set so you will not have to worry about too much duplicate content out there. You wouldn't want to buy a Website that 10,000 other people are buying in the same month. Then your little niche would suddenly be a big competition. 100 - 200 of any niche Website is a good quantity. You can be pretty sure no one will run into two of the same Websites when you consider the billions of Websites out there.

The people who build these ready to go niche market Websites do all the work for you. You don't have to find the small, unique markets. You don't have to create the content. You usually don't even have to find the products to sell. These niche site creators have done all the work for you. You just change a few codes here and there so you will be getting the credit for the affiliate sales and AdSense ads and you are in business.

The greatest thing about niche marketing is you don't need a separate domain name for each Website. You can have one general domain name and add sub-domains for all your sites. You are never going to find a cheaper way to break into the internet income market.

Start your niche empire today.

About the Author: Margaret Albright is the webmaster and editor for the Website Know It All Affiliates, http://www.knowitallaffiliates.com/niche.htm Teaching you, step by step, how to make your internet empire.

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Get your site noticed and build that traffic!

(courtesy of entireweb.com)

Traffic, is one of the magic words on the internet! The number or volume of visitors to your online business Website is what ultimately dictates the success or failure of your home based business or online venture.

You can have the best looking Website on the internet, offering the most incredible product to your potential customers, but if no one comes to visit then all your design efforts will have been in vain.

Now none of us want that do we? I know I certainly don't because I want people to see what I have done and to buy what I have to offer! What about you? I am sure you would like nothing more that to have a constant flow of people to your online business Website. Here are some proven ways in increasing the volume of users who will visit your site.

Use Overture.

Overture is a subsidiary of Yahoo that offers a powerful keyword suggestion tool that helps you come to find the right keywords. If you are using the right keywords on your Website then they will bring in more visitors for your site.

With Overture you type in the words that are related to your online business products or services, and see how many searches were made for those particular entries. The more searches there are, the more you should consider using those keywords in your site.

Submit your site to the many search engines on the web.

We all use search engines when we are looking for information on the internet. Can you imagine what life on the internet would be like without the Search Engines? Doesn't bear thinking about does it? So you need to harness the power of the search engines to ensure that when people use search engines to determine their destination they have the option of coming to your Website!

Know the value of keywords.

Search engine spiders are sent to fetch the keywords embedded in your site, so it would serve you well if your pages are populated with the right keywords you've acquired from Overture. So without turning your online business Website into page after page simply made up of your keywords you need to ensure that your online business keywords are prevalent throughout your Website. The Search Engine Optimisation phrase to cover this is "Keyword Density" and that is such a big subject that it will be covered in a separate article very soon!

Provide quality content.

As I have already suggested simply populating your site with keywords would be useless if done carelessly. Your visitors will be looking for information, and if you don't give them what they are looking for then they will just leave as quickly as they came. Remember, you want quality visitors, those who have the highest possibility of purchasing what you have to offer. You have to provide good, informative content for them so that they'll stay. Try to publish articles or special reports on your site, where your keywords are strategically positioned in the body of your content at a density level of at least 2% (2 mentions of the keywords per 100 words of the body).

Promote in online communities.

Get the word out to the wider world by joining forums, mailing lists, discussion boards and similar online places where your target audience is likely to gather. Many people start threads asking for help. Help them by providing answers to their questions and you will start to build your reputation within your field of expertise. More often than not, in online forums you are allowed to have a signature where you can put a link to your online business Website and this will certainly bring in some visitors as well.

Create a reason to return.

You need to aim at encouraging return visitors to your online business Website. You can build your own mailing list to keep in touch with them and offer some promotions or special offers from time to time. Alternatively you could incorporate a forum into your Website to provide for a venue for your visitors to come together and discuss certain topics. This would simulate the semblance of a community they could call their own, and they would keep visiting your site to join in the discussions.

Constantly refresh and update your content.

Not only will this win the favour of search engines, but it will also increase the possibility of attracting visitors you once lost.

During the early stages of your online business Website's existence, traffic may come slowly. However, do not be discouraged into giving up. With the techniques shared in this article, you can increase the flow of visitors in due time, resulting in a high level of activity for your online business venture. With a prosperous Website comes a prosperous business!

About the Author: Paul Duxbury owns a number of successful online businesses and has recently launched a site aimed at helping those who have their own online business. This can be found at http://www.web-success.co.uk

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SEO Linking Strategies

Get your site noticed and build that traffic! | Search Engine Ranking

(courtesy of entireweb.com)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be the difference between a small, barely profitable or visible Website and a traffic magnet Website. There are a lot of ways, both good and bad, to influence the search engines. Some search engines react to certain strategies better than others. Some even have conflicting strategies that they react to. To document all of these things would require a significant number of pages and research that goes beyond the scope of this article.

However, there are a number of things that can be documented that will work for most if not all search engines. And let's face it; there are really only 3 that make a difference between a successful and an unsuccessful SEO strategy. They are the big three: Google, Yahoo and MSN. These three search engines in any given month are responsible for over 90% of all internet searches.

So, what is this article about? It's about what you can do as a Website owner that will influence the search engines using commonly accepted practices of linking to other Websites (outbound) and getting Website links (inbound) back to you. There are basically 4 strategies that a Website owner usually will employ to increase their Website value in the eyes of the search engine. They are reciprocal linking, one-way linking, multi-site linking and directory linking. A Website owner should not think that using just a single strategy is the right answer - sure it will help your SEO but it won't be the Best answer. The Best answer is to employ all 4 techniques and to do it naturally.

Each of the four linking strategies has specific descriptions that can be summed up as: 1. Reciprocal Linking = Site A links to Site B, Site B links back to Site A 2. One-Way Linking = Site B links to Site A 3. Multi-Site Linking = Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Site C, Site C links to Site D, and Site D links back to Site A. Could be 3..N number of sites involved. 4. Directory Linking = Site Directory A links to Site A

That seems simple enough but it takes time and effort to perform all 4 strategies and most Website owners aren't willing to spend the time or don't have the time to spend on it. As a Website owner, SEO needs to be one of the highest priority tasks that you need to address, just after Order Processing and Fulfillment and Customer Service. Without free traffic from the search engines, other traffic generation strategies that usually require payment must be engaged.

Now doing the 4 strategies above is great, but it gets even harder because you have to do it in a way that doesn't trigger the search engines to enforce a penalty upon your Website. No one except the search engine engineers know all of the exact penalties but we have some good theories for some of them.

The first is the rate at which links are created. There is a certain threshold for creating links that is too fast. It's possible that the threshold is a sliding scale and is related to the age of the Website according to the engine. For example, a young low-traffic Website should not normally be getting 1000 links a month whereas an older Website that gets a lot of traffic could be OK to get 1000 links a month. As you progress in your linking strategies make sure you keep this in mind, especially if you are thinking about buying links.

The second is that having a link to every site that links to you will likely reduce the value of the links. In other words, if all you ever get is Reciprocal Linking, you will likely move up the SERP's (Search Engine Results Page's) but you won't reach your sites full potential. Having a mixture of all 4 strategies will appear more natural to the engines.

The third is having all inbound links to your site on "linking" pages will make those links less valuable than having a natural link on a contextually relative page for a percentage of the inbound links. The higher you can drive this context percentage, the better your Website will rank. These types of links are often some of the most difficult links to generate an exchange for because it requires more time and effort for both Website owners.

The fourth is to have links inbound from all different ranking sites. If all you have linking to you is page rank 6 and 7 sites then you are likely to be sending the message that you purchased your links and that is not natural to the engines. Some would argue that purchasing links for driving traffic is just fine and it is. However, you should not expect the search engines to give those inbound links very much weight when calculating your SERP positions. It is significantly more natural for you to have a large number of rank 1 and 2 inbound links and a decreasing number of inbound links as you move up the page rank scale (0 - 10).

The fifth is to have the text of you inbound links varied. It isn't natural to have every Website that links to you to have the same text on the link description. The natural tendency would be to have a certain percent be the sites name, but after that it should be a wide variety of description. Your link text description is a key factor for how your site/page will rank, so make sure that you keep that in mind as you specify your preferred link text description on your Website.

Finally, it would be best for a good percentage of your inbound links to appear within the text of a page that appears natural for the reader of that site. And for those links to not all point back to the home page of your Website. It's most natural for a good high quality link to appear in the text of a page and have it point internally within your site.

So, when you begin or continue your SEO activities keep all of these things in mind and don't be impatient. Impatience could incur penalties or worse. Your Website could end up in the "sandbox". It is rumored and becoming more concrete that Google supposedly uses a sandbox that questionable sites are put in until they have aged to a point that Google no longer feels that they are being manipulated. Many of the search engines use similar protection schemes to eliminate spam sites and manipulation sites to keep their SERP's from being cluttered.

About the Author: James Mahony is the founder of Search Mama, a site dedicated all things about Search Engines and The Domain Tycoons a one stop guide to domain names.

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Search Engine Strategies for Success: 2006

(courtesy of entireweb.com)

As you know, every year is always rocked by a plethora of changes in the search engine marketing world. The acquisition of smaller companies by the Big 3 changes the marketing landscape as we know it every month and with every update to the index that is made, we hold our breath and hope that we come out better (if not, the same) in the end. So when it comes to the new year, there are many things that we should look out for to stay on top of the rankings.

1. Quality Content: I say this so often and I cannot overemphasize this enough: Content is KING! Search engine spiders, crawl the net to find what? Content! Your site has information (hopefully) that you want the spiders to see and include in their index. By the creation and publication of quality content, you give the search engines more reason to return. You are feeding them what they want. In 2006, you should be finding creative ways to get your content noticed and viewed as well as finding creative ways to publish fresh content on a regular basis. A very good way this is done is through the use of message boards (hosted on your site) and by blogs (enabling you to publish more frequently).

2. Don't Overextend Your Link Exchange Structure: Backlinks were a popular way to increase your rankings fast in the search engines. The tradition holds: find a PR7 Website and trade backlinks and you'll be indexed in Google within 24 hours. That strategy still holds true and is beneficial for new Websites.

But in my opinion the days of tremendous link-swapping are coming to an end. Many Websites have been founded with the purpose of allowing you to exchange links with other Websites. This has caused a massive influx of webmasters who want to exchange a ton of links with the hope that it will help them in the search engines.

But what really matters when it comes to links is the amount of quality one-way backlinks that direct users to your Website. You want the balance of links to be in your favor, that is what leads to success.

Also, there has been talk of search engines taking notice of these "link-farms" and penalizing those who take part in them. So if you do take part in link exchanges, please be moderate in respect to the number of exchanges you take part in.

3. RSS and XML: Two new technologies that have begun to take center stage especially in 2005 include a programming language that has been around for several years called XML. XML is shorth for extensible markup language and is a derivative from HTML. The main difference is your ability to create descriptive tags for your data.

This has led to the advent of RSS or real simple syndication. RSS is a way for you to publish your data to an XML file hosted on your site. Users subscribe to your RSS feed via the XML file and whenever you make a changes to your XML file they are notified. It's become a major technology used by news agencies and bloggers alike as a simple method of publishing your information across a wide variety of platforms.

XML has also proved useful with the Google Sitemaps program, newly released in 2005. The optional tags available with the XML sitemap allow you to be descriptive about the individual pages on your site including dates the individual pages were modified. There are some small things you need to pay attention to when creating this: namely you have to follow the Google xml schema, and you have to be diligent about tracking and fixing errors in the code. But if used correctly, it is a great way to help Google index the hidden pages of your Website due to javascript or flash.

4. Stay away from Flash and Javascript for the time being: Flash and Javascript are very powerful tools for creating dynamic and eye catching Websites. The most prominent problem with the two technologies is that the spiders can't index through them (at least not yet). This limits your ability to have the search engines index portions of your site. Many have speculated that the Big 3 are working on solving this problem, but for the time being, avoid or limit your use of these technologies.

5. Avoid Unethical SEO: There are a lot of programs out there that help you to acheive maxmum linkback ratios in a very short amount of time. Some of them are good; some are bad. In fact, some of them will waste your effort trying to post trivial comments on blogs or trying to maximize your link exchanges. In my opinion, you should seek success in SEM the right, ethical way. Seek out honest web companies to exchange a moderate amount of links with. Post only relevant comments to forums and blogs because that behavior leads to lasting link backs. Also, don't try to manipulate your Website to make it appear to have a higher PR than you really do. Google sees that one!

6. Last, but not least, Articles: There is a little bit of controversial talk about whether it is right to post articles for free use in directories. In my opinion, you are providing a well needed service to webmasters and I don't see this one as a potential loss for 2006. Information is valuable. And Websites that need content (especially fresh content) desire what you do to make their efforts a success. So it is natural for your Website rankings to benefit through backlinks from those articles. It's a win-win situation.

One other thought on this subject. Right now, the search engines can punish Websites for having duplicate content, and that is an argument that many will propose. But, the search engines will usually only punish you if the html format of a web site is similar, not a couple of articles. So posting articles is safe for now.

But be cautious. Many lucrative methods of ethical SEO can be turned into a problem when too many people attempt to abuse the technology.

So that's it. Short, but informative. SEO is both an art and a technology that we have to use correctly for the right type of success. Who knows what the year ahead may bring, but playing your cards right, you can acheive success and avoid any pitfalls that may come.

About the Author: John Wooton Author and Creator, The SEO Journal Blog, http://seojournal05.blogspot.com/.

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Web Page Optimization

(courtesy of entireweb.com)

We all want to have the most attractive Website that leaves a visitor wide-eyed and completely dazzled. Usually an extremely attractive Website design involves lots of graphical elements, increasing the overall page size which causes the page to download slowly to the browser. This article will provide some useful tips on how to keep your Website design attractive but still downloads quickly.

As the average internet bandwidth rate per computer is raising, more and more webmasters allow themselves to develop complex Websites laden with heavy graphic elements. In extreme cases you can find Websites that take as much as a few minutes to load their content in your browser. Of course the user will never wait that long for a Website to load, and will move on to the next Website in his search results.

So why are webmasters still developing slow loading bloated Websites? Primarily due to a lack of knowledge of simple graphic optimization techniques that will allow them to maintain an attractive Website while keeping the page size smaller.

How many of you are aware of the fact that a box with rounded corners can be achieved using CSS code only, without the need for any graphic image. Well it is possible! Before those of you familiar with CSS say that it cannot be done for every type of browser and a relatively high level of programming is required, I say that dealing with the most common mistakes web designers make regarding optimization can have simple solutions.

Never limit the web designer by placing any restrictions that impact the final outcome. You might make the claim that what a web designer can do with graphic software is impossible to implement by code. I disagree. When the design is finished and you are ready to slice it into small images to be used in the html code, your creativity is been tested. Everything you do at this stage will affect the total page size. If your design contains rounded shapes that overlap each other or areas with color gradients, then you must slice it carefully so the outcome is a small file size.

Let's look at what efficient slicing means:

1. Do not make large slices that contain lots of different colors. Use a small number of slices where each slice contains a limited number of colors.

2. Do not make a large slice that contains the same graphic structure. Slice a small portion of it and duplicate it in your code. This is a very common mistake that webmasters/programmers make when dealing with gradient color background.

3. Do not use JPEG file format all the time. In some cases a GIF format will be much smaller in size. A rule of thumb - a slice with high number of colors will be smaller in size using the JPEG format rather than the GIF format, and the opposite is also true. Check each option separately. Every 1KB that you reduce from the image file size will eventually add up to a significant reduction in page size.

4. If you have text on a solid color background, do not slice it at all. Use code to create the background instead. Remember that you can define both the font style and background color of the area using CSS.

Advanced Techniques

Graphically optimizing a Website is more than just knowing how to do image optimizations. There are some advanced techniques that required a high level of programming. CSS2 has much more to offer then CSS does. Although not all browsers have adopted this standard yet you should be ready for when they do. JavaScript also gives you a set of options to create some cool effects without needing to overload the page with Flash. Using limited tools like JavaScript compared to an advanced application like Flash to create the desired effects can be difficult. However think about the outcome. For a Onetime effort you can differentiate your Website from others. You will have an attractive professional looking Website that loads quickly.

Back to the Future

As PDAs, smart mobile phones and mini laptops are used with wireless internet connections for internet browsing, publishing fast loading web pages will enhance the browsing experience not only for those using wide bandwidth connections but also will make the browsing experience user friendly (or may I say, bandwidth friendly) to the wireless clients.

For those who insist that web design optimization is not necessary because everyone will have high bandwidth connections eventually, I agree up to a point. However, the software companies are creating applications that use more bandwidth because they know it is available for them to use. Get used to writing well optimized web pages because this cat and mouse game will never end, and it is better to learn the rules of the game then it is to be bitten.

About the Author: Warren Baker is an Internet business consultant for WebDesigners123. WebDesigners123 connects the Freelance Web Designer with Webmasters who need their services. If you would like to read more of Warren Baker's writings, visit our Website Design Articles page.

About the Author: Warren Baker is an Internet business consultant for WebDesigners123. WebDesigners123 connects the Freelance Web Designer with Webmasters who need their services.

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Wanna Promote Your Website to China Region Via Search Engines?

Value of Internet

According to China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), number of Internet users in China is more than 103,000,000 in 2005.

More than half of Chinese Internet users were below 25 years of age. Out of the total, 32 per cent are students, 12 per cent are professionals and nine per cent are from business and service sectors.

People use Internet mostly for email, reading news and searching for information via search engines. Online shopping spending in China in 2005 was around RMB 9 billions, and will rise to RMB 30 billions in 2007. You can expect there will be a doubled growth in the subsequent years.

With the above figures, business persons must understand the value of using Internet to explore China market. Search engine marketing should be the most cost-effective method to reach Chinese Internet users.

China Region

In fact, China region does not only refer to the Mainland of China. You may also be aware of Hong Kong and Taiwan. Interestingly, Chinese in these 3 different areas have very different cultures due to their historical backgrounds. Even in the Mainland, people from different provinces speak totally different accents of Chinese languages and also differ in their daily life practices. For example, people in GuangDong and Hong Kong usually speak Cantonese. They speak Mandarin only when they talk with people from other provinces. Moreover, people in Mainland and Taiwan are usually not that good in English. Yet in Hong Kong, many people can speak and read English well. Therefore, you must notice the differences in order to write effective Website copies to cater for different China Region readers.

Another important thing to note is that people from Hong Kong, Taiwan, GuangDong, Shanghai and Beijing usually have a higher spending power.

Search Engines in China

Major search engines in China include Baidu, Google, Sina and Yahoo. According to a study by CNNIC, Baidu has 51.5% market share, Google has 32.9%, Sina has 4% and Yahoo has 3.7%. Just based on the above figures, you may think that it should be most appropriate to spend most of your effort in Baidu and Google, right? The answer is "Yes or No. It depends!" Why?

This is because China Region is large and with complicated cultural differences. It is difficult for you to target the whole China Region unless you have millions of budget. If you are small to medium sized companies, decide your target region and focus on it first. For example, if you choose Hong Kong as your target market, I can tell you Yahoo Hong Kong is the most frequently used search engine and no almost one uses Baidu in Hong Kong!

Another point worthwhile to mention is that Google is rated the best search engine in China and the rating means a highly probable translation to its future growth in market share, according to a study made by Keynote Systems.

Paid Search Engine Marketing

Popularity in paid search engine marketing (pay-per-click) in China is increasing. Baidu, Yahoo and Google have their own programs. In order to succeed in a complicated region, search engines mainly rely on agents to sell their pay-per-click marketing. Pay-per-click is a new concept in China, and people there think it is too far too complicated. Therefore, agents usually sell paid search engine marketing by monthly flat rate according to the different schemes. It is somewhat different with the western world.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization is quite a new concept in China but acceptance of this concept is increasing. Currently, there are many black-hat spammers and white-hat optimizers in the country. In China, people usually optimize for Google and Yahoo only, and use paid search engine marketing for Baidu.

The link building process in China region is somewhat different with the western world. Link exchange is uncommon in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It is far more popular in the Mainland. However, the link format is quite different. First, high quality links are usually obtained from personal/ business relationships. Second, reciprocal link format in the western world is usually composed of a Title with hyperlink and description of site but in Mainland, it is only composed of Title with hyperlink. Seems like a link farm? However, it is a common practice in China. Therefore, obtaining meaningful links in China region is no easy task.

Key Factor in Chinese Search Engine Marketing

Many people make a common mistake. Their Websites do not have a Chinese version but they want to promote their Website in the Mainland and in Taiwan. English may be their mother language but it is not a mother language for Chinese. To succeed, you must have a Chinese version. In addition, you need to notice that traditional Chinese is used in Hong Kong and Taiwan while simplified Chinese is used in Mainland. Sometimes, wordings used in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland are also different from each other.

If you are serious in getting online sales from Chinese but are not familiar with their languages and cultures, you had better use an Internet marketing company located in the China Region to help you.

About the Author: Jimsun Lui of Agog Digital Marketing Strategy Ltd, an Internet marketing company offering SEO services, including Chinese SEO service.

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Three Steps to Improved Search Engine Rankings

One of today's hottest marketing buzz phrases is "Search Engine Optimization", or SEO. SEO is the process of configuring an organization's Web site in such a way that when a person goes to Google (or other search engine) and searches for keywords related to the organization, the search engine lists the organization's Web site within its search results in the highest possible position.

SEO can be a valuable promotional tactic within any Web site marketing strategy. However, SEO can also become time consuming because Google, Yahoo, and MSN (the big three) use sophisticated algorithms to index Web content. All three companies continually adjust their algorithms to provide users with the best search results. Therefore, you will need to continually test new techniques to achieve and maintain high rankings.

The AVS Group has researched and developed an SEO model that improves search engine rankings. This article highlights three tactics from our model you can use to improve your own rankings:

Select great keywords
Convert keywords into traffic
Link building

Tactic #1: Select Great Keywords

Your first priority should be to select great keywords that describe your organization and the content within your Web site. It might be tempting to save time by developing a list of keywords, some specific and others broad, and then applying all of them on every page throughout your Web site. However, you will achieve greater results by selecting 10 custom keywords or phrases for each page of content within your site. For example, select 10 keywords and use them exclusively on your home page, followed by 10 different keywords for each subsequent page of content.

When selecting keywords, avoid words that are broad or vague. Broad or vague keywords provide little benefit because likely too many other pages are currently indexed in the search engines using those keywords. To illustrate, let's use AVSGroup.com as an example. Open a new browser window and go to Google. Search on the term "Web Site Design". Look at the upper right corner where Google displays the number of pages currently indexed for the keywords. Google has already indexed about 22 million pages for "Web Site Design".

Instead of competing against 22 million pages for "Web Site Design", AVS chose to optimize a page of content for "Web Strategy Development". This phrase precisely describes one of AVS's Web services, and because fewer pages are indexed, there is a greater likelihood of achieving a high ranking. To illustrate, go back to Google. Search on "Web Strategy Development". Google has indexed 623 pages and AVSGroup.com is the number one ranked site.

Tactic #2: Convert Keywords into Traffic

Once you have selected great keywords, the keywords must be incorporated into the right locations within your Web site to drive more traffic. Some of the best places are within your site's page title, META description, and META keywords. Google, Yahoo, and MSN look for keywords in these locations to help properly index a site's content.

If you are unfamiliar with how to view a page title, open a new browser window and go to AVSGroup.com. The page title is the white text that appears inside the bar at the top left of your browser window.

Next in importance is the META description and META keywords. Both are used to describe the content found on a particular page. To locate the METAs, open a new browser window and go back to AVSGroup.com. Click on the "View" drop down menu within your Internet Explorer window. You will see several options including "View Source". Select "View Source". This will display the HTML used to create the AVSGroup.com home page. At the top of the page, you will see the META description and META keywords.

You will achieve the greatest success if you develop custom page titles, META descriptions, and META keywords for each page within your Web site using the keywords that you selected earlier.

Tactic #3: Link Building

Link building is an SEO term that means requesting other Webmasters to add a link to your Web site within their Web site. This usually takes place in two ways. Webmasters will sometimes add your link within their own site's content because your Web site could be a valuable resource to their site visitors. You can also encourage Webmasters to post your content onto their Web site provided they include a link to your Web site within the credits.

For the first example, open a new browser window and go to www.viroqua-wisconsin.com. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see a link that reads "Web site design and development by The AVS Group". This link provides AVSGroup.com with additional traffic if someone were to click the link, but more importantly, the link helps increase our "Page Rank". More on Page Rank later.

Next, open a new browser window and go back to Google. Search on the phrase "e-mail marketing tips". You should see a link that reads "Learn Successful E-mail Marketing Tips" (it might even be the number two ranked site). Click on this link and you will find a Web site that is featuring one of The AVS Group's Resources articles. This is an example of leveraging your Web site content by permitting other Webmasters to post it and provide a link back to your site. Scroll to the bottom of the article and you will see a link to AVSGroup.com.

Your link building activities increase what is known as, "Page Rank". Page Rank is a measure that Google uses to evaluate the relevancy of a Web site's content. If you have hundreds or even thousands of Web sites linking to your Web site using these two examples, Google will consider your Web site to be more relevant. You will earn a higher Page Rank score, resulting in improved search results for your Web site against sites that might even be optimized for the same keywords.

In closing, this article shared three key tactics within our SEO model that you can use to improve your search engine rankings. Because of the complexity of SEO, please let us know if you would like to learn more about our full SEO model. Our Web experts will demonstrate the various tactics within our model and discuss the results.

About the Author: The AVS Group is a marketing, training, and communications company. AVS is in La Crosse, Wisconsin. AVS helps clients communicate and market effectively. AVS can be found online at http://www.avsgroup.com.

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Improve your Search Engine Ranking

If you are an internet marketing novice, you are probably facing the seemingly impossible and somewhat daunting task of trying to get your site listed on the first page of the search engines. You probably have no idea how to improve your ranking. For the purposes of this discussion, we will outline the procedures you should follow to climb steadily to the top of the search engines, while still making sure that you attract qualified traffic that will actually be receptive to the products or services that your Website offers.

The first thing you need to understand is that your search engine ranking will not improve overnight. There are quite a few charlatans in cyberspace who work as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consultants. They will charge you an arm and a leg for their services, sometimes as much as $2,000 per month or more. They often make dubious claims that they can get you ranked on the first page of the search engines within a few months, and if not, they will kindly refund your money.

However, there is a catch. Once you pay the initial deposit and the SEO company begins working on your Website, they will often optimize your Website in such a manner so that you will be able to quickly rise to the top of the rankings for a keyword that is either not significant or will not attract any real traffic to your Website.

For example, if your Website provides auto insurance quotes, any SEO consultant knows that it will be impossible to expediently get your Website ranked on the first page of Google for a highly competitive phrase such as AUTO INSURANCE QUOTES. So, instead, they will pick a variation of that phrase, such as AUTO INSURANCE QUOTES FAST, for which there is no competition, and you will quickly rise to the top. The only problem is no one will ever actually use that precise phrase when searching for auto insurance quotes, so even though the SEO company delivered on its promise to improve your ranking, you will still not get any visitors to your Website because you will be ranked high for a keyword that no one will ever use when searching for auto insurance quotes.

So, you need to use a different approach if you want to not only improve your ranking, but also attract qualified traffic to your Website. The first thing you need to do is optimize your Website for the keywords or phrases that people actually use when searching for products or services related to what you offer. For example, if you sell vitamins, you would want to improve your ranking for the phrases BUY VITAMINS or BUY VITAMINS ONLINE. To optimize your Website for your chosen keywords, you should either hire a web designer that has experience optimizing Websites, or you should purchase search engine optimization software that will show you how to tweak your Website and how to change your HTML code so that your site is properly optimized. You should also try to have a decent amount of free content on your Website that relates to the keywords or phrases for which you want to be ranked higher.

The next step is to submit your site to the search engines, if you have not already done so. It seems silly to mention this considering that we are talking about search engines anyway, but some people actually forget to submit their Website to the engines, or only submit their site to a couple of search engines and then quit. There are hundreds of legitimate search engines and directories in cyberspace, and you should submit to all them. I recommend that you look for search engine submission companies on Google and pick one that charges a small monthly fee to submit your site to the search engines once per month.

The last step, and probably the most important component of getting ranked higher on the search engines, is increasing your link popularity. The more Websites that are linking to your site, the higher your ranking will be. To increase your link popularity, you will need to submit your Website to link exchange directories so that you can swap links with other Websites (they will link to you if you agree to link to them). Also, you can write articles and submit them to article submission directories. At the bottom of each article you write, you are allowed to include a link to your Website. As the articles you write are put into circulation and are published on other Websites, your link popularity will increase.

If you employ each of the strategies outlined in this article, you should be able to improve your search engine ranking while at the same time garnering the kind of traffic that you want. No Website can improve its ranking overnight, but if you are persistent, your efforts will be rewarded in the long run.

About the Author: Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make free HTML forms.

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Search Engine Optimization: Snake Oil or Science?

I recently met with a client to review design proofs for a new web site and to begin discussion on home page content and web copy requirements. The subject of search engine optimization came up, and as I was generally discussing basic notions of keyword inventory research, meta tags, page titles, headings, word count, keyword frequency and prominence - the usual SEO stuff - I was interrupted by another fellow at the meeting who dismissed the importance of SEO work and suggested it was inexact and unimportant.

Now, the world is full of pagans - those who are non-believers on the subject of Internet marketing - and I wouldn't even mention this meeting if it weren't for the fact the pagan in question is a 'Madison Avenue' type advertising executive with a full career behind him. It got me to thinking about the differences between what I will refer to as traditional or orthodox marketing, on the one hand, and Internet marketing, on the other. The goals may be the same in the abstract - SALES - but the methodology is different, and the ability to measure is measurably different. Let's chat about differences for a moment.

The suggestion was made that because the web site in question was not going to be offering any product for sale, there was no point in SEO work or Internet marketing. Flat out wrong. Every web site has a Most Desired Response, that which the site owner wants the visitor to do while visiting, and that MDR needs to be identified. The site's design and content need to be crafted tightly and well around that MDR, identify it with absolute clarity, and remove all obstacles that might prevent a visitor from the response. A sale is not the MDR? Okay - what about a phone call, a visit to the 'sticks and bricks' store or providing an email address for a newsletter? Those are of almost equal value, for they continue down the path of building relationships. Relationships that are well nurtured convert to sales, and that's why I say of almost equal value.

Due diligence is required for keyword identification and keyword inventory statistics, and copy on the home page must be based upon that research so search engines will refer the right visitors who will offer that most desired response. Web site statistics on visitor numbers and conversion rates (a visitor becoming a customer who performs that MDR) tell you what you need to know about your chosen keywords and your web site content to determine whether and what changes should be made, and the process is repeated. Every visitor action can be measured - to the person, to the penny - and a prudent web site owner should heed those actions, learn what they mean, and adjust the site accordingly. I've said before that a web site needs to be a perpetual work in progress, and this is why.

It is no hyperbole to say that web site performance can be measured to the person, to the penny. The tools exist to provide every statistic needed for those measurements, to tell you both why something worked and why it didn't, as the case may be. This is the advantage SEO work has over more orthodox marketing methods. A display ad in a newspaper of 200,000 circulation does not get seen or read by 200,000 pairs of eyes, and there is no reliable way to measure exactly how many eyes fell upon it. Such is not the case on the web. Beyond that, newspaper circulation is down dramatically as more and more folks get their news on the Internet. Where do you think your advertisements are better placed today?

It is important to note that ad dollars are moving away from print, radio and television and into the online world. A recently released report underscores this point. Outsell, Inc., an information industry research firm, reports that the surge of dollars into the online sector continues to grow. Outsell's ad-spending study, published in January of this year, was based on a survey for 625 leading advertisers in the US, and revealed that respondents plan to spend more than 18% of their ad budget online in 2006 compared with 16% of their budget in 2005, while cutting back slightly for TV, radio and print. In a recent story published in the Boston Globe, Outsell reported that approximately 80 percent of advertisers currently use the Internet, and the adoption rate is expected to grow to 90 percent by 2008.

Where, then, do you think the eyeballs will go? As if that is not enough, listen to this: the 2004 holiday season saw $19B spent online; the best figures for the 2005 holiday season suggest it was nearly $30B. The Forrester Research Group in Cambridge, MA, estimates online commerce in the US by 2009, only three years from now, will approach $340B.

Madison Avenue veterans who haven't kept pace with the Internet or who don't understand either its potential or its reality are intimidated by it. They deal in trends, speculation and opinion; those of us who market on the web deal in carefully gathered and analyzed certitude - to the person, to the penny. This isn't to say they don't still provide a useful product. Rather, their thinking must expand to recognize online marketing as an equally integral part of any solid marketing plan as any other component.

So, are you a pagan or a believer? Is it snake oil or science? Anything as measurable as Internet marketing can be only one thing, and those who want to survive and succeed need to convert.

About the Author: Michael L. McGrath is a Web Copy Writer and Search Engine Optimization Strategist whose projects have won Webby Award recognition. His business, MLM Celtic Enterprises, can be found at www.mlmcelt.com.

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6-Reasons Why In-House Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is Ineffective?

With the growing popularity of Search Engine Marketing (SEM), many companies are currently running SEM programs in-house rather than outsourcing it to a certified firm. Although there are many resources available to help individuals implement SEM in-house, they are often very basic and do not explore the intricacies involved in an effective SEM campaign.

“Many of our clients began SEM efforts in-house, but found this to be complex, ineffective and costly in the end,� explains Kelly Cutler, CEO of Marcel Media. ”

They would rather outsource these projects to trained and qualified experts with experience and proven techniques in this field.� Here are 6 reasons why in-house SEM can be ineffective:

1) SEM and SEO Campaigns are time intensive. SEM programs, unlike traditional media, are not “set it and forget it”. SEM campaigns often include thousands of keywords which require customized ad text and landing pages. All of this must be updated on a regular basis to ensure that your marketing dollars are working hard for your business. Search Engine Optimization involves technical updates and ongoing upkeep with engine algorithms and constantly changing search environments. Most in-house marketers don�t have the time to dedicate to SEM which is required to have the most impact.

2) SEM requires dedication. Paid ad campaigns, such as Google Ad Words, require constant maintenance on a daily level to deliver the most effective results and to maintain a certain budget. Dedicating time to your SEM campaign also allows you to identify your biggest and most agressive competitors, so that you can manipulate your campaign in order to make it more effective.

3) SEM is very competitive and the market drives costs up. Search Marketing professionals are able to predict spend and prevent any budget overages. Many in-house SEM campaigns falter because they are not able to maintain set budgets. A trained professional can put stops in place to maintain consistent costs and ensure a well managed budget is spread out evenly over the course of a given timeframe.

4) Successful SEM campaigns demand accurate tracking and analysis of effectiveness. Many in-house SEM programs lack effective reporting. The appeal of SEM is that this type of marketing is results-driven and the best way to determine campaign success is through accurate and detailed reporting. Experts can not only tell you where the campaign is running well, but they can tell you where there is room for improvement through analyzing data, creating benchmarks, and optimizing campaigns.

5) In-house SEM programs often are unaware of search engine policies. Many companies find themselves in unwanted situations when they are either banned or reprimanded because they used practices in their SEM that are forbidden by search engines� policies. This can have very negative effects on a website and often lead to banning by Google and other top search engines. Outsourcing SEM to a notable firm ensures that a trained and certified individual is measuring the effectiveness of the marketing campaign.

6) In-house SEM programs do not have support. Agencies have direct partnerships with search engines and are able to get support when needed. In-house campaigns find that they are at a lost when they need help with their SEM campaigns. Many agencies enjoy the privilege of being able to take advantage of any upgrades or testing before the general publics is allowed.

About the Author: ABOUT MARCEL MEDIA
Marcel Media is a strategic interactive advisory firm that specializes in search engine marketing, web development and application integration, social networking, and online marketing and advertising. Since 2003, Marcel Media has worked with clients such as Hub International and Rush University Medical Center to achieve their online marketing goals. In 2005, Marcel Media produced the Chicago Search Report, a groundbreaking analysis of business owner search engine usage.

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