WebiMax Blog

Research out from Google this past week sheds light on the most recent behavior regarding mobile search and activity. Google conducted a small survey of 1,000 individuals in the US, UK, France, Spain, Germany, and Japan. We have discussed here on this blog before about the explosion of smartphone use and by extension general internet usage and search on smartphones. Now, Google reports that mobile search is just shy of 100% in terms of adoption with smartphone users, with the majority searching at least one time per week. For a look across the studied countries, Japan showed the highest usage of search engines on smartphones in general at 99% of users, followed by the UK and Spain at 96%, then the US and France showed 95% usage, and 92% for Germany.

There many marketers out there who may have heard about Tumblr, but are struggling to grasp its true worth regarding search engine optimization. This unique form microblogging site actually contains a great deal of SEO potential that, if utilized properly, can really help boost a business or a brand. If you need any examples, just take a good long look The New York Times and its recently launched Tumblr blog, titled "The Lively Morgue" as reported by Mashable.

Are you winning with your PR pitches or missing the mark, like an inexperienced pitcher from the California penal league?  Remember Rick 'Wild Thing' Vaughn from Major League?   You may know him from his present-day role as Charlie Sheen (but I digress).  Rick had the 'heat' behind his hurls but his approach needed tweaking.  A customized pair of Clark-Kent glasses and a music-filled montage of highlights later, Vaughn comes around, rallying the once-trailing Indians behind him.

By now it is likely that you have read tons of articles and literature on the importance of social media in search engine optimization, as well as in a brand's general advertising initiatives. Even with all of this information, it may hard to truly visualize just how essential social media is to a company's marketing strategy. You may still be wondering, is it really worth investing your precious time and money into something that seems like an esoteric, new-fangled fad?

Is your brand producing at a faster and better pace?  It seems to be a growing trend, especially in the tech-related industries.  Apple understands the rate of competition.  As Reuters reports, the Apple brand is hosting an event next week, showing its faster and better iPad tablet to the world.  Apple's event is invite only, including reporters Apple asks to see and "touch" the brand's latest creation.

I don't' have a high-def monitor; is it me or does your homepage look a bit dusty?  Is it time for a spring clean?  When was the last time you considered giving your brand's online face-page a scrub down?  If you've been following search engine optimization tips over the years, it's likely you've introduced, attended to, neglected, and eighty-sixed a number of implementations.

Since the launch of the iPhone, Apple has enjoyed a large percentage of the US smartphone market continually setting new heights in the sale of the product in this market. Just this past quarter, they sold 37 million iPhones, which is over twice the number a year prior. Like much of Apple's products, the iPhone has garnered a great deal of attention from consumers and media alike and has cultivated a dedicated fan-base.

Facebook on Wednesday is set to stage its biggest-ever ad event, where it's expected to unveil an ad platform overhaul just two months before its IPO. The company's future might depend on how well advertisers are able to parlay the dominant social network's 845 million users into building buzz and branding — and more sales. Read more

While 90 million users have logged onto Google+ since its June launch, not many are spending much time there, according to research by comScore. In Take on Tech, WebiMax founder and CEO Ken Wisnefski talks about the platform's future possibilities.  Hear more

Have you ever considered live-tweeting an event? In the past few years, this has turned into a widespread, popularized activity included in the SEO campaigns of businesses and organizations. Now, live-tweeting has entered the world of healthcare as well, as two doctors in a Texas hospital live-tweeted an open heart surgery for the first time ever on Tuesday, February 21, 2012.

I wonder if Picasso threw paintings away after one day.  That's what happens to a lot of writers' online works.  Content is not physically "trashed"; yet, if it's not evergreen (and even in those cases at times) the content kind of rests there, eternally at peace.  It's a sin we let content pass on in such a way.  Shouldn't we facilitate a longer existence?  After all, copywriting professionals put in time and energy; we'd like to see our creations curated, raging against the dying of the light.

Facebook disclosed an eye-opening fact this month when it filed its plan to go public: 425 million members access the social network on smartphones and tablets.  The disclosure sent up red flags for analysts, because the company also said it does not “currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven.”  Read more

In Friday's post, I started this look at the expansion of Google's Get Your Business Online initiative into emerging markets in India and Africa. I contended in the post that the potential economic impact is immense here. Consider the numbers. Of an estimated 8 million small businesses operating in India, there are roughly 400,000 or 5% that have websites, according to the official Google India Blog. There is obviously considerable opportunity for many more companies to get online and grow their businesses.

For all of you SEO marketers who think that the mobile app Instagram is just another fun, silly recreational activity, think again. Like its social media predecessors, a la Twitter and Facebook, this popular photo-sharing service has recently proven its clout as an effective marketing tool with a great deal of promise and potential. The evidence comes from Ford's use of the app to promote its Ford Fiesta throughout Europe this past fall, in a recent report by Mashable.

How are you (informally/professionally) using social sites these days?  In the beginning of the online party, there was sparse professional participation.  MySpace and Friendster were more or less social sites, platforms where friends could connect in informal fashions.

The success of Jeremy Lin as a brand cannot be understated. We are introduced to a man who was released by two NBA rosters, only to be given a chance by the New York Knicks. His instant rise-to-fame as the starting point guard of the Knicks proves more to consumers than simply a lesson in professional sports.  Read more

Google's Get Your Business Online initiative is having far-reaching impacts beyond simply getting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the developed world online that do not already have a web presence. The initiative has been implemented in emerging markets as well, bringing online capability, SEO potential, and economic opportunity to specific countries in the developing world, particularly in Africa and Central Asia. I discussed Google's Get Your Business Online initiative in an International Business Times piece yesterday where I described the background of the initiative, its offerings, and the opportunity for SEO for the many new businesses that will find themselves online in these developed markets. Now, with its expansion into emerging markets, it is a promising development for several other reasons.

The success of Jeremy Lin as a brand cannot be understated.  We are introduced to a man who was released by two NBA rosters, only to be given a chance by the New York Knicks.  His instant rise-to-fame as the starting point guard of the Knicks proves more to consumers than simply a lesson in professional sports.

For several blog entries now I have reiterated how great and powerful a tool Twitter is for any business that is implementing a successful SEO marketing campaign. However, in the same way that Twitter can significantly help your company, brand, product or service, it can seriously harm you as well.

The SEO and social landscapes continue to evolve, and this reality will never change. What does change though is the how - how social users connect with one another and how that can be leveraged for SEO gain. As a result, regarding this relationship SEO evolution usually, but not always, comes in response to changes in the social space. Once new platforms are used and understood, marketing potential is realized and put into action. Enter Pinwheel, the new soon-to-be-launched map-based social networking site that has gotten people talking this week. In his blog post today on SEOServices.com, JWersits introduces the site, its basics, and gives us a look at the sponsorship system that Pinwheel is looking to use for companies to gain exposure through the platform. Here, I'll continue where he left off and look at how SEO companies could potentially use the platform for marketing gain once it emerges from beta and is fully rolled out both domestically and internationally.

What's the importance of a business' personality?  That might seem like an odd question; isn't your business a thing, not a person?  Sure, but creating associations to your company is a large part of branding, a process not to be ignored.  I referenced personification this week in a post about getting consumer attention.  Maybe for some, it's easier to regard your business as a person; entrepreneurs are a suitable population to personify.  The group has a lot in common with aspiring businesses.

Even when an online retailer wins out on price, the cost to ship it to your home might erase the price advantage, which is especially true of heavy items such as televisions.  “You’ll see sites that have a good price, but they’re trying to get it to the East Coast from Arizona, and a lot of the time ... it might be better to go to Best Buy,” Wisnefski says.  Read more

Along with other bloggers and copywriters, I love to write.  That's what I do.  What do you do professionally?  Search engine optimization providers partner with businesspeople in a variety of industries: medical, industrial, automotive, legal, and so on.  Each client has their own respective areas of expertise, which may or may not overlap with my own.  For instance, while lawyers are likely good writers, they may not have the time to invest in online marketing pursuits throughout their day; rather than write a blog post for their site, they'll approach SEO copywriting professionals, who can help with search engine optimization objectives.

It has already been stated time and time again how socially powerful the micro-blogging site Twitter can be in the non-virtual world, and how important it must be to all SEO campaigns. Here's another inspiring story from the Associated Press on how Twitter is being utilized to impact a community in a positive way.

Microsoft Advertising adcenter is evolving, and the latest changes move the platform closer to Google Adwords in an effort to make terminology and functionality similar to what marketers are using with Google. Ultimately, this is a good move for Microsoft, paid search, and those marketers managing pay per click campaigns and it shows that Microsoft is realistic in their understanding of adcenter's place in paid search. The reality is that Microsoft's advertising platform is second to Google's Adwords, and acknowledging this allows Microsoft to use this fact to their advantage.

There has recently been some interesting news that has dropped on the international front regarding search engine optimization and social media. Russian search engine and purported Google rival Yandex announced a partnership with the social media site Twitter that would allow public posts from the micro-blogging site to be included in Yandex's Blog Search results.

Are you Pinterest(ed) yet? The biggest news from the past few weeks has centered on the social media site Pinterest, and its huge potential value to SEO marketing for companies. Are you a business owner who is just starting to get familiar with this newly popular technology? Feeling stumped as to how you can best apply this new social media tool to your company's SEO campaign? Take a look below at other businesses that are effectively utilizing Pinterest to market their businesses online.

This month, Google+ passed 100 million users. And analyst Paul Allen (Google+ unofficial statistician) predicts that by the end of 2012 the number of Google+ users will exceed 400 million. Who are these people? Many of them are your customers, partners and media professionals. And now with Google+ Your Business, Google is attempting to make it easier for you to connect with them, for free.  Read more

It would be blasphemy to say it in China but the sensational start of Jeremy Lin’s rise to superstardom overshadowed the important U.S. visit of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping last week.  Read more

Facebook has designed Timeline to look the same on mobile devices as it does on PCs, although without the ads. Lieb said Facebook is also testing ads that appear like status updates on the news feed, yet remain in view longer, so they don't get pushed down and out of sight right way. The ad could start as a friend's "like" or other social activity, and only be seen within a friend's network, she said.  Read more

Web entrepreneur Ken Wisnefski is concerned that Facebook's users will not appreciate the addition of mobile ads in March.  Read more

WebiMax

Vice-President Xi Jinping's visit to the US this week has attracted a lot of expected attention from government officials, the media and the American public.  What was totally unexpected was the dramatic entry on the sports and international scene of New York Knicks basketball player Jeremy Lin, a Chinese-American born in Palo Alto, California, to parents from Taiwan. The 23-year-old point guard has led the Knicks to seven straight victories since being inserted into the starting lineup two weeks ago.  Read more

Who's who in [insert your brand's name] -ville?  Knowing users' levels of clout was a major factor influencing former 'gamification' engagements.  Brands enjoyed user participation but did not know too much about its Badgeville 'citizens' otherwise.  Who is who is becoming more important in 'gamification' as a player's level of social 'clout' is crucial info for brands to identify.

There are a lot of online marketing options these days.  Social media alone hosts a party of solutions.  We know (through SEO best practices and a series of 2011 Panda updates) the production of content is important.  We also have come to understand (especially considering the popularity of social media) that the dissemination of content is also integral, elongating the reach of marketing initiatives, offering a better chance to secure consumer relationships.

Twitter caused waves last month when they announced they would be instituting a per-country take-down policy regarding controversial or banned content tweeted by its users. Many are showing their disapproval about the restrictive nature of this policy and predicting its relative impact on its users and the future of the platform. According to the announcement coming via Twitter's blog, the take-down policy is reactive in nature. They describe it stating, "We will withhold specific content only when required to do so to what we believe to be a valid and applicable legal request."

Industry leaders in reputation management discuss the many pitfalls and advantages of an agressive brand management campaign. Not only as a defensive strategy but also as a proactive influencer to build reputation authority.

Sometimes the best way to enhance the user experience of a website's service is to integrate it with another site's content. At least, this seems to be the case with the new collaboration between Kayak, a hotel search website, and TripAdvisor, a site that allows users to submit their own reviews of hotels and other accommodations they have stayed in while travelling.

If you're old enough to remember, some prime-time television stars (Roseanne Barr) were credited using only their first names.  I'm not really sure how one 'officially' reached such plateaus of stardom regarding 80's television, but if you're exceptionally 'down' in today's pop culture and social media world, Facebook will dial-up your account asking you to confirm your 'alternate' identity (a nickname, brand name, well-known moniker or otherwise).

Kenneth Wisnefski discusses “Image Jacking” with Richmond Morning News.  Hear more

Facebook's new deal with Bango shows its efforts to make some money on those who use Facebook on their mobile devices. Webimax founder and CEO Kenneth Wisnefski joins Alisa Parenti in Money, Markets and More.  Hear more

Operations become more dynamic when they expand into international markets, complete with new and different structures and regulations. I touched on this over the last two days regarding Google Maps in France and the Street View functionality in Germany. Essentially, nothing stays the exact same from country to country and Google, maybe more than any other company in the tech industry, is experiencing this in a big way. Just recently, the Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) made weighty accusations against Google alleging they interfered with the commission's antitrust investigation regarding potential limiting of access to local search engines on Android. Moving beyond this tension, Google engineer Matt Cutts made a presentation to roughly 80 South Korean government officials, lawyers, webmasters, and journalists in an appeal to allow Google's bots to crawl prominent government websites.

Cinderella

As I discussed in my last post, Twitter is quickly becoming an essential tool in SEO marketing campaigns. A new service, Chirpify, only serves to validate that, and takes the advertising – and selling – of a business's products or services to the next level.

A new website with a very off-color description of Mitt Romney could create a serious image problem for the Republican presidential candidate. Reputation management experts call it “image-jacking” -- and Google says it's out of the company's hands.  Read more

The New York Knicks' young point guard has nearly melted search engines and Twitter over the past week despite other big stories, such as a possible war with Iran, the struggling economy, U.S. presidential election and Tuesday's release of the 2012 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.  Read more

When Boxer Floyd Mayweather wrote on his Twitter account Monday that ‘Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he’s Asian,’ and then later followed up with a tweet saying, ‘I’m speaking my mind on behalf of other NBA players. They are programmed to be politically correct and will be penalized if they speak up,’ I thought it made sense to ask some of the 76ers what they felt about Mayweather’s comments rather than let him speak for them.  Read more

In the wake of talented singer Whitney Houston's tragic passing the night of February 11th, 2012, there is one thing stood out conspicuously: the use of social media in spreading the news of her death, and in allowing fans from all over the world to express their condolences.

Happy Valentine's Day, valued WebiMax readers.  Are your customers headed, straight as an arrow, toward your site's services and products, not just today, but each day of the year?  Search engine optimization facilitates a love connection and the endless search for brand attention.  Brands engineer goods and services to meet the needs of valued customers.  Online marketing helps align and spark brand-consumer connections.

Innovation can lead to profitable small and medium business (SMB) growth starting in 2012. This year can be a rebound year for SMBs if business owners commit to innovating and focusing more on client-retention. The key problem is that most business owners are reluctant to move forward due to pressing economic concerns including the financial markets, credit ratings and unemployment; however, it’s the lack of focus on key internal areas that are keeping them in a hover pattern.  Read more

In yesterday's post, I described how the initial resistance of Google's Street View in Germany could, at least in part, be attributed to the country's more private culture. Looking at its acceptance, the raising of concerns by Google Maps' audience had a considerable positive impact. Engagement to some degree did occur, according to the Time Magazine/Worldcrunch article, or at least Germans opposing the service had a vehicle to show their opposition made possible by the head of Hamburg's Data Protection Authority (DPA). In the article, the head of this authority stated that giving people the opportunity to disapprove "diffused the situation and helped Street View gain acceptance." Thus, creating a forum which allows people to voice concerns is sometimes all that is needed.

How's your brand getting attention today?  There are in-house and external ways to beckon attention.  Seek search engine optimization information; vendors offer an array of choices, addressing technical, social, and copywriting needs.  Do you want ongoing commerce from customers once you have their immediate attention?  While SEO offers opportunities to drive traffic to your site, your company has the power to make your brand a 'regular hangout,' enjoying endless attention.  That's what you want, right?

When Google was introducing the Street View feature of its Maps platform in Germany, culture was at the root of its initial resistance. This is yet another example of technology and the internet challenging cultural norms and existing laws in new ways. German culture largely tends to be more private than others, particularly US culture. This can be seen throughout society, but most applicable for tech companies and search engine optimization experts is how it impacts their online activity. As such, Germans had one of the lowest adoption rates of social networking sites in Europe during the initial years of their existence. But in time, Germans have joined social sites in great numbers, once the technology and its impact on privacy was understood and accepted it appears.

Happy weekend, search fans!  You have some time this weekend.  Catch-up on your online marketing/search engine optimization reading.  I've read, synopsized, and delivered links to informative tidbits from around the world of search.  Take a gander at what I've gathered:

Happy Friday!  It's time to put in a day of work and then dine on the fruits of our labor.  Everybody's working for the weekend, right?  Pull some cash out of your account and take a ride on the weekend's ferris wheel.  If you bank with Citibank, you may have recently gotten confused by the numbers.  Sometimes that happens – getting confused about numbers that is, not how much cash is in your account; the latter is a scary thought.

When Facebook filed for its IPO last week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the company generated $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011, 85 percent of it stemming from advertising. Currently, Facebook solely hosts ads on the standard version of its social media platform. However, the company recently inked a deal with Bango that will bring ads and mobile payments to Facebook mobile versions beginning in March.  Read more

Facebook reportedly revealed this week that more than 60 million users have engaged with third-party apps via its mobile Web site or native apps that integrate with the Bango service. With its mobile use growing, monetizing mobile is crucial for the company if it wants to continue driving overall revenue growth, and a new agreement with Bango for payment services could be one way the company is looking to do so.  Read more

Bango, a U.K. mobile payments services company, announced Wednesday that it has signed an agreement with Facebook, launching a spate of rumors that Facebook's 425 million mobile app users will soon see ads. Bango's announcement came in the form of a two-paragraph release, which says it's "too early in the relationship to accurately forecast the level of business which it may generate.”  Read more

Have you seen Google in the news?  Do you use Google's services to get your news?  As Greg Sterling of Search Engine Land reports, a lot of people use Google across multiple verticals.

The Internet is abuzz with the word that you might soon be able to buy a new Kindle at an actual Amazon (AMZN) Store. The e-commerce giant is reportedly opening its first pilot store in Seattle, something of a boutique operation that will feature Amazon exclusives like the Kindle e-reader, Kindle Fire tablet and its proprietary e-books. So why might Amazon -- which has become the nation's biggest online merchant, in part, by avoiding the overhead costs of operating stores and deftly skirting state sales tax laws to offer shoppers super-low prices -- start flirting with bricks-and-mortar retailing?  Read more

There’s been a lot of activity on the Web and in our industry in the last week and I thought it might be fun to try and tie at least some of it together.  Much of it in one way or another involves Facebook—or FB as the proposed ticker symbol suggests.  Read more

There's been a lot of activity on the Web and in our industry in the last week, and I thought it might be fun to try and tie at least some of it together. Much of it in one way or another involves Facebook -- or "FB," as the proposed ticker symbol suggests.  Read more

Facebook is still learning how to make money off of all it knows about you. And it will probably be learning for years, just as Google has evolved over time.  Read more

Facebook officially filed for their IPO last week with an expected offering to take place in May. At that time, Facebook will be valued somewhere between $75 billion to $100 billion. Also announced were the company's 2011 financials, showing $3.7 billion in revenue. As strong as this figure looks at first, investors should look further into key data to see how Facebook generates so much of their revenue.  Read more

With a projected valuation of as much as $100 billion, Facebook’s imminent IPO may portend great things for social media. But many planners feel less bullish about its prospects for delivering investment returns.  Read more

Mark Zuckerberg and crew may have just dialed-in some hefty numbers associated with Facebook's past-Wednesday IPO.  According to the numbers, things are going swimmingly for the social media giant.  However, as sources tell the New York Times, "We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven."

Some people lose face as a result of dropping out of school but Mark Zuckerberg transcends the mold of some; he's the CEO of Facebook, a company that filed for $5 billion (with a 'b') IPO on Wednesday.  While he's distinguishable from most 'dropouts,' he's also distinguishable from most CEOs and 'business-minded' company figureheads; for instance, Zuckerberg has been known (especially in Facebook's beginnings) to forego immediate revenue for control.

The culmination of the football season is knocking at this weekend's door.  Who's going to win the big game!?  My personal excitement is feigned; I share sentiments with another 'Googler.'  However, I do hope your consumers view your brand as a 'giant' in its industry and a 'patriot' regarding customer service and meeting mission statements.

Facebook officially filed its IPO on Wednesday. The initial public offering is expected sometime in May and will value Facebook at $75 billion to $100 billion. The company generated $3.7 billion in 2011 revenue. As strong as this figure sounds at first, a savvy investor should look further in to its financials to see how Facebook generates so much revenue. It is reported that the social media titan generated 85 percent of overall revenue from advertising.  Read more

Todd Bailey, Vice President of Digital Strategy at WebiMax, and senior administrator of SEO Services, announced that the website has “become one of the fastest growing expert SEO community websites” and furthers “SEO Services attracts traffic from some of the industry’s most reputable figures.”  Kenneth Wisnefski founded WebiMax in 2008.

I don't need to be jostled from sleep by Sonny and Cher; judging by the "Phil Murray" and "Punxsutawney Phil" Twitter trends, it's February second.  How many more days of winter?  I live in LA; don't hate; there's plenty of sunshine, yes, but smog, ebb-less traffic, and unrelenting crowds of people live here too.  I'm not worried about the fate of winter; but, being in online marketing, I am interested in link building processes.  If you operate a business, tips on link building should have you 'walking on sunshine,' because it's no secret of success – link building improves authority, rankings, and exposure.

Congress is considering making an important change to a law that hasn’t been touched since the heyday of VHS tapes. It’s all about privacy. You can share most anything on Facebook, but not your Netflix queue. “They want to have the ability to make that rental history more public, have it become something that is a lot more social.”  Read more