Tune in this week to Internet Marketing TV to watch a step-by-step instructional video on how to sign your company up for Google Local Business Center.

Watch this episode of Internet Marketing TV to see a step-by-step instructional video on how to generate and embed a Google Map into your Web site.

Another presentation from our internet marketing experts in Northern Virginia. This week, we focus on reputation management through Google Alerts.

Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals | Stacey Morgan Smith

Google continues to revolutionize the way we get information.

I’ve been a reliable reader of the Washington Post for close to 15 years. Home delivery, read it each morning on Metro…even drove 20 miles to pick it up weekly (at a huge markup) when I lived in Central Virginia. Moving back to Northern Virginia 3 years ago, the very first thing I did was go online and order a 7-days-a-week subscription.

Now I’m faced with recycling papers I can’t find time to read. Google, the Post and the NY Times are making it easier for me to stay on top of the issues. Read More »

Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals | Stacey Morgan Smith

Tuesday’s sessions at SMXEast in New York continued with “Ask the Search Engines: Best Practices Edition.” Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land moderated, and notes from the presentations and Q&A with Google, Yahoo!, and Bing include: Read More »

Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals | Stacey Morgan Smith

My final Monday session at SMXEast in New York included the all-important topic of link building. Though it was a bootcamp/basics class, link building is often considered a difficult part of SEO. Attending the class gave me a few new pointers and useful information. Read More »

Learn Social Media with Laurie Dunlop

It’s the simple things in life we sometimes take for granted. For example, the view from my desk of the Occoquan Marina in Northern Virginia is lovely, even on rainy days. Without question it puts me into a better frame of mind for writing. No matter how many times I see a bald eagle swoop through the sky, it never fails to give me a thrill! My poor husband works from a windowless cubicle deep within the Pentagon. How can I forget how fortunate we are at NetStrategies to see such beauty while working?
Read More »

Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals | Stacey Morgan Smith

Sometimes when I’m working on rewriting site copy for a customer, I go a few hours without lifting my head to see what’s going on in the world of search engine optimization. I keep TweetDeck running, so I may see a few tweets come in, but today I just figured a lot of people were talking about coffee.

Not quite. This afternoon, I finally took some time to check out the coffee talk. Wait — not coffee…CAFFEINE!!

AP reports that Google, already the giant in search engines, has been planning a new engine, which Google’s blog states “will be faster, more accurate, and more comprehensive.”

Read More »

Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals | Stacey Morgan Smith

If you search the Internet, you’ll find search engine optimization companies that make a lot of guarantees.

“WE GUARANTEE – Our SEO Tactics And Strategies Makes You More Money, Sends Your Website To The Top Of Search Results In More Than 500 Search Engines…” [sic]

“Top 5 Ranking OR 100% Money Back !!!”

“We guarantee your website top 10 search engine rankings within 3 to 6 months (or earlier).”

“Cheap SEO Package for your Website – $60 –Guaranteed Results”

“SEO Experts provide guaranteed top ten seo placement”

“We provide full proof [sic] seo services with guaranteed results.” (foolproof, indeed)

Wow, guarantees sound GREAT! Heck, I should hire one of these guys, right? I mean, if they promise me the top spot in a search engine, AND they promise to give me my money back, well, what do I have to lose?

Time and money to start: time invested with a company that gained its expert status yesterday, money wasted on inexperienced optimizers, and more money through lost sales opportunities.

How do you know you can trust your SEO company?

Read More »

To complement Stacey Morgan Smith’s post regarding the impact of the bing and Yahoo! union on organic search, I’m writing to you about its impact on Pay Per Click advertising. Here are some of the facts that we know so far:

• The deal is still a long way from closing, in fact the complete bing/Yahoo! search engine is at least two years away. The process of approval alone will likely take the rest of 2009.
• Microsoft’s adCenter platform will replace Yahoo!’s Panama platform. This means that ads placed in Yahoo! will be managed through MSN adCenter’s interface. This will take additional transition time after the deal is approved by regulators.
• Cost Per Click (CPC) prices will be set by adCenter’s automated auction process. With an increase in advertisers coming to bing from Yahoo!, it will be interesting to see what happens with CPCs. Like anything in the PPC medium, industry verticals will obviously play a large role.

One of the primary shortcomings of Microsoft’s adCenter was lack of volume. It simply does not generate as much traffic as Google or Yahoo! This is one of the most intriguing parts to this partnership. In the words of a press release from www.choicevalueinnovation.com:

“With the addition of Yahoo!’s search volume, Microsoft will achieve the size and scale required to unleash competition and innovation in the market, for consumers as well as advertisers.”

Overall, the general consensus among the PPC community is that this partnership is a good thing for the PPC industry. It will give Google increased competition and also will give Microsoft the search volume it needs to accelerate the learning from its own marketplace and improve its adCenter platform more quickly. I’m looking forward to any improvements Microsoft can make to its adCenter management interface. At the moment, AdWords provides the most advanced campaign management tools, so it will be interesting to see what improvements Microsoft can make with the increased search volume and insight from Yahoo!.

Sources: ad Age, Choice. Value. Innovation., and SEW