Seven Days in Search – Online News at a Glance

Here is a quick round up of the latest updates and news from the SEO sphere!

Google+ For Business: It’s Good for You

Unbounce loves infographics – and its latest, impressively long example makes a powerful case for the merits of Google+ for business. Headline benefits include: it’s indexed by Google; it’s new, but already has more than 170 million users; and it’s growing rapidly. According to the article, 60 percent of Google+ users log in every day, compared to only 50 percent for Twitter, and Google+ allows you to curate information that builds a business persona and engages an audience. Add the fact that membership will continue to grow, since all Gmail users have a Google+ account by default, and you’re on to a winner, concludes the piece.

Maximizing the Link Potential of Infographics

Infographics are also good for link-building, SEOmoz reminds readers, in a guide to getting good link-mileage from your efforts. Make it really easy to share your work by adding an HTML embed code, recommends the piece, and include some form of branding in the body of the graphic in case people don’t credit you. If you’re serious about reaching an international audience, consider translating your work, and tweet about it in the same language. Reuse your content by reformatting it, using video as a powerful repurposing tool, promote it to death among your social networking circles, then wait for it to go viral, concludes the article.

Don’t Neglect Your Video Landing Pages

Given the popularity of video content, don’t waste your creative efforts by failing to optimize your landing pages, warns ReelSEO, in a piece that delivers eight solid tips. Ensure your general SEO is in shape before tackling video-specific tasks, and start by using YouTube’s search filters to research high-quality keywords, advises the article. Add an XML video sitemap, and consider adding a text transcript if your page is short on written content, recommends the author. Make it eye-catching, adding stand-out thumbnails, and finally, check your page loads quickly to avoid losing visitors before they view your masterpiece.

Pinterest Tips for B2B Marketers

There’s no shortage of advice for businesses wanting to use Pinterest as a marketing tool, but most of it’s aimed at consumer-focused organizations. Social Media Examiner offers tips for B2B companies wanting to take the plunge, starting with the ever-popular infographic. Pinning attractive cover images of your gated content, including e-books and white papers, is another proven technique, while images of your products and your brand are must-haves, concludes the article.

Ask the Experts: Link-Building 101

PushFire assembled 10 of the best-known names in the SEO industry to answer a series of probing link-building questions, and unearthed some gems in its 2012 guide to Link Building with the Experts. To compete with brands that dominate the top SERPs slots, become a brand yourself, suggests Rand Fishkin – it’s what “real companies do.” The panel is almost unanimous in asserting that links will remain very important to SEO for years yet, with most members still focusing on quality links as the most significant ranking factor. Recent changes to Google’s algorithm, assert the majority of panelists, don’t change white-hat SEO ground rules one iota.

Keyword Research for SEO: Short Tail vs. Long Tail

Keyword research is a critical part to any SEO campaign. An article on The SEO Agency discusses the importance of keyword research and how to effectively use both short-tail and long-tail keywords in your strategy. It is best to use a mix of both types of keywords and the article suggests two strategies to accomplish this 1) combo pages and 2) individual pages. The key is to keep sight of competitive short-tail keywords in your SEO and content development, while taking advantage of specific long-tail phrases.

Creating Content with Compelling Calls to Action

Every piece of content you create, states SEOmoz, should be “leading people to perform measurable actions.” Simply adding a “Buy Now” button to your page isn’t just inadequate, it’s a turn-off, warns the piece. Be provocative, visionary, authoritative, timely or just different, it opines. Telling a coherent story is another key piece of the puzzle, and allows you to lead the reader gently toward the desired conversion. Rate your content against these factors, concludes the article, and change your writing style to plug the gaps.

Google+: Hyperdrive Yet to be Engaged

According to Google’s Bradley Horowitz, Google+ is still waiting for the intense period of growth that has characterized other social media networks, including Facebook and Twitter. Speaking in London, Product Management VP Horowitz noted that it took other “successful social networks … four years to get to the hypergrowth stage.” Horowitz also hinted at soon-to-launch products that will make a big difference to Google+ usage, one of which, he indicated, is a new Google mobile client.

“Do Not Track” – Better Get Used to It

Ad Age Digital speculates about the impact of do-not-track (DNT) technology on the continuing development of digital marketing. Given the unprecedented ability of publishers and marketers to amass data about online consumers, DNT represents a potential return to the marketing stone-age, asserts the piece, but don’t expect it to go away. Consumers will ultimately opt for privacy, and marketers need to adopt other, less intrusive practices. That said, concludes the article, there will remain “a continuing residue of vague consumer unease even in a DNT-on world.”

Google: We’re Not Crowd-Sourcing, We Just Want Your Opinion

Last week, Internet strategist Nathan Sauser noticed a new Google pop-up asking his opinion of the search results it had just delivered, and posted details of the event on his blog. Trying to second-guess Google’s motives, he provoked a number of articles on SEO blogs, including a piece by WebProNews that concluded it was no more than an exercise in gathering live feedback. “This is one of our experiments,” confirmed Google, one which WebProNews believes is easier to use than the current offering.

Conversion Rate Improvement Tips

Too many business websites still fail to deliver content that satisfies visitors, suggests Search Engine Journal, citing missing phone numbers, prices and company information as the main oversights. Many pages also lack a coherent call to action, observes the article. Search Engine Watch, in similar vein, looks at ways to improve conversion rates, starting with gauging customer intent. Structure content according to your visitor’s likely stage in the buying cycle, suggests the piece, avoiding ambiguity throughout and reducing the level of choice at each stage. Remember to ask for feedback, concludes the author, as the first step in building brand loyalty.

Yammer: Microsoft’s Billion-Dollar Facebook Clone?

Microsoft finally shook hands on a deal to acquire Yammer, worth $1.2 billion, reports Wired.com, confirming one of the industry’s worst-kept secrets. Microsoft says that Yammer, “a Facebook-like social network designed specifically for businesses,” will remain independent initially, eventually being wrapped into the company’s other products, including SharePoint and Office 365. Yammer CEO David Sacks, who will stay in post, made headlines in March 2012 when, in response to what he saw as “patent trolling” by Yahoo, he offered a $25,000 signing bonus to any Yahoo employee who left to join Yammer.

The Yammer logo

Yammer’s logo

SEO: Big Business – and Getting Bigger

BlueCaribu’s infographic on the size of the SEO industry answers a heap of questions, but raises a few more. Every month, 2.4 million Americans, just over half of them male, search for “SEO,” reveals the graphic, and 863 million websites around the globe mention the term. Interestingly, as a nation, the United States has only the fourth-highest interest in SEO, behind India, Pakistan and the Philippines. But try to locate any numbers that show the monetary scale of the industry and you’ll come up short – this piece is more likely to fuel water-cooler debate than board-room strategy.

Bing Image Search – Pretty as a Picture

Having introduced a minimalist look to its SERPs pages in May 2012, Bing announced one month later that it had extended the process to Bing Image Search. Noting that image search accounted for 7 percent of all Bing searches, the company introduced a tile-based layout that received positive responses from Search Engine Land and others. Now sporting a look-and-feel that resembles Pinterest’s much-mimicked layout, the revamped Image Search also features filter bars, trending searches and search suggestions.

Short of Inspiration for Fresh Content? – You May Already Have Written it

Econsultancy takes an outside-the-box look at content generation, often rated by marketers as one of the more difficult techniques to get right, and suggests repurposing existing business communication, including emails, phone calls, training materials and customer service stories. Taking time to reuse some of the content that you already write in response to customer queries and service calls can provide great articles and blog posts that are fresh, original and fun-to-read, asserts the piece.

Try Event-Driven Local Link Building

Local events present great opportunities for link building, suggests SEOmoz, in a post that considers the collateral value of seminars, training days, shows and conferences. While you need to focus primarily on the benefits of the event itself, warns the article, taking a little time to add your event to relevant event-listing websites can result in useful, natural links that are entirely spam-free. Good targets include regional news sites, business magazines and local trade associations; remember to check your competitors’ backlinks to identify link sources, reminds the piece.

Low-Cost Mobile Conversions Largely Ignored

Many search marketers are ignoring the potential of mobile search advertising, squandering the chance of conversions that cost far less than the corresponding desktop ads, suggests Marketing Land, offering two contrasting case studies. Although primarily aimed at pay-per-click practitioners, the advice applies equally well to mobile SEO, and underscores the fact that “most marketers [are] still not serious about mobile,” according to the article. The studies show that driving visitors to call a live agent is a highly effective conversion technique, and reflects the increased use of smartphones in early stages of the buying process.

Could Samsung and Apple have another big competitor

For the past month or so, Samsung and Apple have dominated headlines with their patent trial. Such a case was probably inevitable – how many ways can you design a smartphone? – but any such case would inevitably gather daily headlines. After all, it was Apple and its iconic iPhone vs. Samsung and its status as world’s largest smartphone manufacturer. They’re both kings of the industry in their own ways. Yet they could have a competitor breathing down their necks before they know it.

Lenovo has been around for a while, and in their time they’ve made some waves in the laptop sector. Remember the IBM Thinkpad? In the late 90s and early 00s it seemed as though everyone had one. When IBM exited the consumer electronics business, they sold the brand to Lenovo, who have continued to the line to this day. They’re not quite as ubiquitous these days – the MacBook has taken over the role of the Thinkpad – but it’s still a high-quality Windows offering. In fact, it’s one of the main ways in which Lenovo competes with Apple.

ThinkPads on the International Space Station

ThinkPads being used on the International Space Station.

The present: laptops

Let’s face it: laptops won’t be around forever. They’ve evolved to get smaller and smaller, but the latest round of laptops appears to be their evolutionary end. The only way to make them smaller is to remove the hinge, and when you remove the hinge from a laptop you don’t really have a laptop at all anymore. Still, the latest round of laptops, dubbed Ultrabooks, has made quite an impression on the market.

Apple started this trend years ago with the MacBook Air, but that model went through a few generations before it became a viable product. Once Apple got it down other companies followed. Lenovo got right on the trend, coming out with two lines: the ThinkPad, that business-class continuation of the IBM line, and the IdeaPad, a ligthweight, affordable Ultrabook meant for the consumer market. They are directly comparable to the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air.

The difference, of course, comes in the price. The 13.3-inch IdeaPad runs more than $450 cheaper than the 13-inch MacBook Air, and more than $250 cheaper than the 11-inch MacBook Air. The ThinkPad compares even better to the MacBook Pro. The Apple faithful might not have much of a need for a different line of laptops, but the average consumer can benefit greatly here. Fact is, most people simply do not need a Mac. PCs can do pretty much the same, and oftentimes more. The saved dollars can go towards products of the future.

The future: tablets

To complete the thought above, when you remove the hinge from a laptop you don’t have a laptop. You have a tablet. While tablets aren’t quite to the level of replacing laptops, they’re certainly travelling that path. Just take a look at the super-thin keyboard cover for the Microsoft Surface. The writing is pretty much on the wall. Soon enough manufacturers will deliver laptops that make us look at laptops like clunky relics of the past.

In this territory, Apple is the undisputed king. People often ask me for advice on buying a tablet. They’ll ask, “is the new iPad worth it? Or should I get an Android tablet?” And I tell them that no, the new iPad isn’t really worth it; the iPad 2 is the second-best tablet on the market, and you can find it at a significant discount. Android tablets just aren’t there yet. But Lenovo has an idea.

First, they’ve put down the idea of competing with Apple on features. Samsung did this with the Galaxy Tab 10.1, pricing it at the same as the iPad. Seeing the two products next to each other, who was going to choose the Galaxy Tab? Lenovo has dipped below the iPad’s $500 base price. They’ve also differentiated, offering four different tablets: three Idea Tablets, ranging from 7 to 10.1 inches, and a ThinkPad tablet, designed for business.

Again, Android has a ways to go when it comes to tablets. But it appears that Lenovo has something going with its segmented offerings and skinned Android interfaces.

Smartphones in the offing?

It would be interesting to see if Lenovo decided to compete on all levels by offering a smartphone. It seems as though everyone’s doing it these days, and with AT&T and Verizon supposedly pushing customers away from the iPhone there might be an opening here. And again there’s a chance for Lenovo to segment its offerings, using Android for consumer and BlackBerry 10 for enterprise.

Yes, BlackBerry is something of an afterthought these days, but they do appear to have a strong offering with their BlackBerry 10 operating system. Problem is, they might need some licensing help to get it off the ground. Lenovo, which already has inroad to enterprise customers, could combine with RIM, which is – or at least was – the enterprise leader. On the other side, creating Android smartphones shouldn’t be such a big deal.

The Logo of BlackberryYet the competition issue comes into play here, too. Apple dominates its own little space, which consumes quite a large portion of the overall market. Samsung seemingly dominates the Android space. No one really dominates the Android tablet space, though, because it hardly exists. But if carriers really are pushing Android smartphones, there could be opportunity there.

Age of the smart consumer

I’d like to believe that we’ll soon enter the era of the smart consumer: one not dominated by fads and iconic brands, but rather by utility. The average consumer does not need a Mac, yet might feel as though they need one because everyone else has one. In truth, many other companies can fit the bill. Lenovo fits right in there.

And if you don’t need a product and can save money buying a comparable one, doesn’t that make the most sense? Wouldn’t it be more sensible to buy a $700 laptop and a $400 tablet for less than you’d spend on just a MacBook Air comparable to the other laptop? It makes sense to me.

The story of the online auction monopolist eBay

eBay. A firm which in 2011 had a net income of more than 3.2 billion. A website which almost everyone has heard of.

In an article I recently posted which explored whether there is really that much diversity online, I noted how eBay owned four websites in Alexa’s top 100 ranking – eBay.com, eBay.de, eBay.co.uk and PayPal.com.

There is no doubt that eBay holds a monopoly on the online auction market. But how did it get there? On September the 2nd 1995, eBay didn’t exist. One day later on September the 3rd it did, and after just over 3 years and 6 months, the site made its first major acquisition, the auction house Butterfield & Butterfield which it purchased for the price of $260,000,000 USD. A spend of 260 million after less than four years trading? eBay’s rapid early growth set it up to become a global internet phenomenon.

eBay kept buying up smaller firms, but not spending nearly as much as it had on its first purchase until mid-2000 when it forked out 318 million (USD) to buy Half.com. This was an amazing investment at the time, as even today it stands as eBay’s 6th largest ever investment, and it has made hundreds.

PayPal's logoThat said, the purchase of Half.com was to prove small fry to PayPal, which the now giant auctioneer purchased 2 years later in July 2002 for an astounding $1.5 billion. PayPal integration with eBay is (in my opinion) one of its greatest ever business moves. eBay is now able to seamlessly integrate processing credit card payments without having to pay millions every year to third parties. Fees eBay would have lost to PayPal are now extra revenues.

eBay wasn’t done though, going on to make the biggest purchase in its history, by buying Skype Limited for more than $2.5 billion. The auction site purchased the Luxembourg based company in 2005, only to sell 70% of its shares in 2009 for $2 billion – a healthy profit. Later, in May 2011, Microsoft bought Skype in its entirety for $8.5 billion, an investment which I am not sure it will see great returns on in the near future at least.

Skype's LogoeBay started to turn into a Microsoft and a Google. It was fast becoming an internet giant which bought up pretty much anything it could see turning it a bigger profit, or anything which posed a threat – in terms of competition. Just some of its purchases include StumbleUpon, Bill Me Later and Magento, the ecommerce web application.

Many say that eBay is one of the most notable successes the dot-com bubble, and I have to agree. Without the internet, eBay would be nowhere. It got in early and grew from the start, giving its competition very little chance.

Like it or hate it, eBay is an internet phenomenon, and also an internet giant. In my opinion it is successful down to luck: a good idea at the right time. Had it been thought of a year later, eBay might not be what it is today, had the internet not really taken off as it has and still is doing, eBay would again might not be where it is today.

What are your views on eBay? Were you aware of how much it owns and how rich it is? Is its monopoly unfair, or don’t you mind?