Healthy Blog Reviews

With all the talk this week about Facebook valuations and the money that they are making (OK so it’s a guesstimate but what the heck……it’s the Internet!) it makes one think about just how Facebook plans to continue to grow top line revenue. One way was revealed as the ability to target Facebook ads locally increased considerably. Inside Facebook explains further In its latest move to expand its performance advertising program, Facebook is offering what it tells us is “thousands” of new cities in its self-serve advertising tool, meaning advertisers can more narrowly target users across the United States and around the world. From social game developers to the various large and small businesses already using the service, the information could help them boost their returns on investment. Well, it sure looks like local is the new black. It makes sense but the degree to which local online advertising seems to be expanding is still surprising. It’s not like the concept is new but the varied ways to reach the local consumer have emerged, developed and grown so rapidly that the sector is poised to really kick into gear. For the SMB’s of the world there is now a better source to reach very segmented groups who are only in their backyard. Oh and it’s cheaper than other options. For now. What is your experience with running local ads on Facebook? While traffic may be a good thing has the traffic converted? Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Tags: experience, facebook, facebook-icon, inside-facebook, internet, marketing, money, Online Advertising, reach-the-local, Social, traffic, united, United States, world
Posted March 4, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

It’s getting closer to the moment of truth for me and this kind of “news” gets me a little closer to making the move on going with an Android device. I know the days are numbered for my BlackBerry. That’s a foregone conclusion. I guess I am the customer that is being most fought over between Apple and any Android device (hence Google for all intents and purposes). I want out of my Blackberry Storm sooner than later but I am still debating whether to wait out the contract to go with an iPhone (it’s a year away) or commit to an Android device ….. now. Google today introduced the ability to search on an Android device using 2.0 or higher using written gestures. Pretty slick. The Google Mobile Blog tells some more. As mobile phones become increasingly powerful and can store more data, we’ve introduced new methods of search to get you to your content faster, such as search suggestions or search by voice. But sometimes, typing to get to the right search suggestion takes too long, and you may be in a quiet environment where speaking a query is inappropriate. Today we’re pleased to announce Gesture Search, a new Google Labs application for Android-powered devices running Android 2.0 or above in the US. Gesture Search lets you quickly find a contact, an installed application, a bookmark or a music track from hundreds or thousands of items, by simply drawing alphabet gestures on the touch screen. This ability alone is not enough to make me switch but the speed with which Google is progressing with functionality and specific Google centric changes is making many pay close attention. Add to that the Apple v. HTC (indirectly Google) alleged patent infringement case and it look like the Android is going to be a real competitor and Apple knows it. I am not taking sides in the Apple v Google war because I use both of them to do much of my work. I am, however, trying to figure out how I can get the most out of each because there are benefits to both. Right now, though, I need Google more than I need Apple so maybe this isn’t such a tough decision after all. While I am at a crossroads of sorts as a mobile user where are you with regard to marketing in this space? Do marketers need to take sides or do they truly need to ride the fence and look to appease both groups? Or am I completely wrong in assuming that the Android market will ever challenge the iPhone dominance? How do you see this?

Tags: ability, Apple, black, blackberry, customer, gesture-search, google-mobile, iphone, Local/Mobile, making-the-move, mobile, Search, space, work
Posted March 4, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

For once, an advance in Google personalized search I actually like. They’re adding the same stars we’re so used to in Google Reader and Gmail to personalized search results. The starred results let you mark favorite sites to show up at the top of future posts—and it doesn’t appear to affect the rankings of the rest of the organic results. As Google puts it: With stars, you can simply click the star marker on any search result or map and the next time you perform a search, that item will appear in a special list right at the top of your results when relevant. That means if you star the official websites for your favorite football teams, you might see those results right at the top of your next search for [nfl]. The stars are replacing an old feature in personalized search: SearchWiki. Says Google, “In our testing, we learned that people really liked the idea of marking a website for future reference, but they didn’t like changing the order of Google’s organic search results.” (Which probably isn’t to say they actually disliked reranking sites, but just that they didn’t do it very much. Seriously, it just wasn’t super useful.) Any SearchWiki notations you made will be saved in your Google Account. If you want to continue to make notations in SERPs, Google recommends Sidewiki, its browser-based, publicly-edited sidebar wiki for commentary launched back in September . Last we heard, Sidewiki hadn’t really taken off—maybe this is Google’s push to create new, passionate users. The stars are all set to go and will be rolling out for all signed-in users in the next few days. So far, there’s no indication starred Google Reader items will have any relationship with this effort beyond the passing similarity. One big drawback for marketers, of course, is that every step forward in personal search may mean we’re less likely to be able to rank a site universally—or even tell if our site is showing up for most signed-in users. Plus, we may have to sign out to get the “neutral” results for reporting (although if you’re starring a client’s competitor in your SERPs, “sumbuddy’s doin it wrong”). What do you think? Do you like the idea of stars and the simpler interface to mark sites you’d want to see in SERPs again? Or do you worry about personalized search affecting marketing? Would you like to see your Google Reader starred items showing up for relevant searches?

Tags: adding-the-same, cloud-hosting, doin-it-wrong, liked-the-idea, organic, reranking-sites, Search, starred-results
Posted March 4, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

So Google’s facing an inquiry from the European Commission after accusations of anti-trust . Naturally, Google’s not taking this lying down. On the European Public Policy blog, Matt Cutts responds to allegations of anti-competitive practices by sharing their secret sauce, PageRank . But are they transparent enough? (Yeah, the link is just the original Stanford paper on Google that discusses the basic principles of PageRank as defined 10 years ago.) Google outlines all its efforts to help webmasters and increase its transparency, including: “Google has continued to publish literally hundreds of research papers over the years. Those papers reveal many of the “secret formulas” for how Google works and document essential infrastructure that Google uses.” “In 1999, Sergey Brin participated in the first Search Engine Strategies conference for webmasters.” “In 2001, Google became one of the first search engines to engage online at a publisher forum called WebmasterWorld . One representative (GoogleGuy) has posted over 2800 times, while another (AdWordsAdvisor) has posted almost 5000 times.” “Google now has over 70 official blogs, including an official webmaster blog specifically to help site owners understand how Google works and help them rank appropriately in our search results.” Live webmaster chats and in-person conferences Webmaster Tools Although lots of lawsuits and disgruntled individuals claim that Google is an evil black box, the list of things they’ve done to reach out and help webmasters is impressive (even if a lot of webmasters don’t know about it)—and I just listed things till I got bored. What do you think? Has Google made enough of an effort to be transparent and helpful? Is this an adequate defense against anti-trust allegations?

Tags: european-public, help-webmasters, legal, paper-on-google, publisher-forum, Search, search-engines, tools
Posted March 4, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

You’d think that with all the SEO conferences Google sponsors and speaks at, it would have at least some grasp of basic search engine optimization techniques, right? Yeah….no. According to a self-examination , Google is about as bad at SEO as any multi-billion company. In fact, you might argue that Google’s SEO efforts are worse than most. After all, pretty much everyone knows that a well structured Title tag format is key to good rankings, right? Well, apparently not all of us: OK, let’s stop it right here. I grew up in England, so maybe things are different in the US, but 10/100 only merits a “Needs Improvement”?? If I achieved a 10% on anything in school, it would warrant a smacked bottom and no dessert! Needs Improvement is a little understated, don’t you think? OK, back to the report . It’s worth taking a look, not just because its fun to snicker at where Google failed, but it includes a lot of practical SEO advice. Lastly, I’ll leave you with this opened can of worms. If Google’s SEO is so bad, how are any of its 100 products able to rank in its own index, without a little manual intervention? ( via )

Tags: advice, apparently-not, basic-search, everyone-knows, good-rankings, improvement, little-manual, smacked-bottom, well-structured, worth-taking
Posted March 4, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media