MediaVision Blog : Search Engine Marketing

The only country in the world where mobile web marketing has truly taken off is Japan. The Japanese have been using their mobile phones to access the internet, send emails, buy items and pay for store bought items via “electronic wallets” for years, and they haven’t been using iPhones. Their mobile technology companies churn out 100s of new models annually, each with more sophistication and more features than the generation before. The question is: why have they managed to embrace mobile technology while the rest of the world struggles to do so?

Smartphones in Japan

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Futuristic blog posts are incredibly popular, and often very astute, but remind me of that wonderful Goons joke, narrated by Seagoon: “As I walked down the crowded streets, people seemed to know I was British - was it my bearing, the cut of my dentures, or was it the 8 foot flood-lit Union Jack tied around my head? I’ll never know…”

SEOs love to speculate on the “the future”. What I mean is, news in SEO is rarely understated, and oft repeated. And I don’t think that the future of communications, particularly in news and journalism, will necessarily be heralded by SEOs. But that’s not the point of my post. The point of my post here is to comment on what shape generally these “futurists” seem to see the web taking, and why.

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A lot has been said about Google’s complicity in the death of a host of traditional media, such as radio, music and, of course, print journalism. Many people decry the death of proper investigative journalism and lay the responsibility squarely at Google’s door. Google’s size and it’s fairly global dominance make it an obvious and easy scapegoat for a multitude of traditional failings. Why look at the inner workings and mechanics of a traditional establishment in search of the real problem and a constructive solution when the Big G is there just waiting to be blamed. And with IT and algorithms still being so hazy in many people’s minds, it’s all too easy to get away with it.

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Is it possible for your new page to get top ranks in Google after just a few days? The answer is yes, if you are talking about a Knol page. Google’s knol site, which is also known as a unit of knowledge, has got several of its pages ranked highly within as little as three days. This site was created by one of Google’s vice presidents of engineering, Udi Mander, in late 2007 and went live on July 23 2008.

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Are you receiving email, after email, and more email? It can be an overwhelming task in the average employee’s working day. Haven’t you ever wished that you could just turn it off for the day? One of the problems with doing that is email is often your only avenue for communication with clients or even fellow colleagues. This is especially true for companies that have international branches that need to communicate with each other.

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An anti-corporate advertising evangelist paid Columbia Records to run a PPC campaign on their home page. The ad text he chose stated: “Major Labels Are Obsolete/ R.I.P or learn and thrive/ Music. Tech. The New Music Business”, and displayed a link to their home site, which promotes a vague new music industry – presumably a communist one. The point was to promote relevant ad placement, while supporting those smaller web masters who are often forced to pay their bills using advertising that is not congruent with their sites’ messages.

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A couple of weeks ago it looked very much as if Google would acquire Digg (at the not insignificant price tag of $200 million). Many people in the search/social marketing world thought that the deal was pretty much done and dusted, people such as Gyutae Park, from Winning The Web, who went so far as to compose a list enumerating the ways in which the Google-Digg deal would affect the internet. Even though the deal fell through or was called off, or whatever (who knows what’s going on the world of virtual acquisitions?), Park still believes that a Google-Digg is on the cards, and he is not alone.

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On the 24th of June, the Wall Street Journal published a piece claiming that Google would be releasing a new and free internet usage statistics product, due for release within a matter of days.

In the article, author Emily Steel considers that the product would rival the services offered by existing internet usage data providers, namely the prominent ones: Comscore and Hitwise. She muses that, given the sheer size of Google’s data infrastructure, they could significantly shake the web measurement market place, especially if they offered that data up for free.

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Harnessing the creative power and “wisdom of crowds” is a concept that has been around since the mid-90s, but it’s only over the last two years or so that it’s gained popularity among online marketers. The term “wisdom of crowds” was popularised by author James Surowiecki, who wrote a book by the same name. Basically, it means that there is more to be gained from collective intelligence than individual thinking. According to Surowiecki, the age-old adage “two heads are better than one” has more than an element of truth to it.

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There are many companies who outsource their SEO (search engine optimisation) requirements; sometimes fully or sometimes partially, but some may not fully understand the benefits of hiring an SEO company to take care of things versus having a dedicated, internal SEO division or person. There are many fly-by-night SEO companies offering discounts and specials and fringe benefits, while the real cost of an SEO campaign all really depends on the clients being involved and the agreement between them and the respective SEO companies. Project scope, website technology, market competition, client-side resources and billable hours are all factors that could influence the cost and efficacy of an SEO campaign.

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