Social Media firm LinkedIn plans their initial public offering (IPO) of common stock on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker: LNKD at tomorrow’s opening bell. The company will release tonight (Wednesday) in the after-market trading the official share price. Experts expect the price to be between $42-$45 per share. This concerns some investors, however, as the company has a slowing revenue growth and has not released projected profits for 2011. At the offering, however, the company will be valued at $4.11 billion.

Announced yesterday, Microsoft’s search engine bing will now favor websites that have been “liked” on Facebook by your friends. This obviously changes the rules of search engine optimization (SEO) in that it doesn’t seem to matter the PageRank of the website, if users are logged in to Facebook (as indicated in the top banner) then PageRank is favorably given to websites that your friends have “liked” or recommend. It does not matter if the website contains original, quality content, or even if it normally ranks far off in space of search results, as long as it is “liked” then it’s going to show up high.

The Quarterly Benchmarking Report was released today by Marin Software indicating that advertisers are continuing to shift their advertising dollars from traditional advertising methods to online advertising. The report clearly states that paid search has increased some 61% from last year. This rise in demand however has not driven up the cost per click (CPC).

WebiMax offers many products and services. One of our more requested areas of service stems from our SEO consulting services division. Here, we focus on clients that have internal teams and require additional consultation to efficiently leverage the effectiveness of their current staff. Below are some of the examples in the consulting services we offer:

Today, at the Google I/O Developer conference in San Francisco, CA, Google plans to announce an online music locker service that will allow users to digitally purchase, store, and access their online media wherever they are. The idea of a “cloud” based music service was first announced earlier this year by Amazon.com, and Apple Inc. has been in the talks of launching a similar music service.

In a report released today, Apple has surpassed Google as the world’s most valuable brand. Apple is reportedly now worth $153 billion, de-thronging Google who held the rank for 4 consecutive years. The report, released today by BrandZ, who conducts a study of the world’s top 100 brands each year, was released in London, U.K., where WebiMax recently opened an international office.

The newest addition to Google’s Analytics platform is the ability to track page load speed. This is HUGE! Improving site load speed is absolutely vital to websites (not to mention search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns).

Today, Google announced at the Social-Loco conference in San Francisco, that they will be updating their famous Places tool to include the interior photos of local businesses. This will be most useful in downtown local business districts where the cliental are regular visitors. It will be mostly advantageous for bars, restaurants, and coffee shops to be featured, to show off the interior set-up of their business.

Although somewhat comical that our blog post today is on the importance of writing them, we at WebiMax strive to provide additional resources and information that people can use and benefit from. Now, on to today’s topic, the Importance of Using Blogs:

Research conducted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) at the beginning of 2011 states that video ad spending will increase 22% in 2011. The report states that this is due to the fact that video advertising provides marketers with more reach, consumers are more engaged, and it is easier to track the overall return on investment.

Kenneth C. Wisnefski, Founder and CEO of WebiMax, the #1 rated search engine optimization (seo) firm in the United States by TopSeos.com, announced today that the company is receiving tremendous success with its use of video search engine optimization (VSEO), a product that was added to WebiMax’s portfolio in early 2009.

Looking for an innovative way of marketing your company or brand that sets you above the competition? Go Viral! Viral marketing breaks from the traditional methods of marketing and acts to create an interactive, fun experience for both the buyer and seller. Typical methods include blogs, eBooks, flash movies, YouTube movies, and more. Usually, these are integrated with a social media campaign.

WebiMax has been closely following the updates and results of Google's recent Panda International Update.

Today, Facebook deals went live in 5 U.S. cities including Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco. In November, Facebook announced “Facebook Deals”, and in March, the first release was sent out in Atlanta. Now, that original release is titled “Check-in Deals” (which has 15,000 likes) and the new deals site is live.

In February, we reported on Overstock.com who was caught by Google for using questionable search engine optimization (seo) tactics in improving their PageRank. In a report announced by the company today, Google officially lifted their ban on Overstock, a ban that had sent them to no man’s land on their search engine results.

Ken Wisnefski was covered in the Business Section of the Press of Atlantic City today.

Let’s say that your company thrives on seasonal revenue and you want to maximize sales this summer. If you’re a small business that has a specifically defined geographic market (i.e. golf course, marina, shore resort) then consider using a search engine optimization (seo) company for your most important sales months.

Today, Google released a new updated version of their Analytics platform. Google analytics lets users view real-time data related of their webpages. The new update lets users create multiple dashboards, set interaction goals, and compare statistics over a period of time. The update also includes a performance enhancement that speeds up data processing.

In an interview with FOX Business in March, Founder and CEO Ken Wisnefski stated that “companies are starting to incorporate more resources in to social media optimization, and don’t be surprised if we start to see a dramatic shift over the next 1-3 years toward social media marketing. That 50/50 social media / traditional marketing arena is not out of the question”.

On Friday, Apple reportedly filed for lawsuit against Samsung for “copyright infringement” in the development and production of their Galaxy tablet and phones. Apple is seeking punitive damages which could certainly be a whole lot, since their Galaxy products have generated over 11 million units sold since their release last year.

This week, Google released their “Content Farm – Panda” update to all English-speaking countries including Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada, where WebiMax, an online marketing company specializing in search engine optimization (SEO), has expanded operations. The initial release of the Panda update took place in February, released only in the United States. Now with the update reaching English language-based countries abroad, additional websites that are managed through “black hat” SEO tactics will be affected.

During February, Google made a significant change to its search algorithm known as the “Farmer Update”, to crack down on content farms that lacked good, original content. These pages would falsely satisfy search algorithms and show up high in PageRank. The obvious problem is that these pages lacked quality information and were essentially useless pages. Yesterday, Google released this change internationally to all English language-based countries. In addition to this, they also updated the algorithm.

Microsoft Corp. is claiming that Google is deceptively misleading customers about the security of their various applications, representing another piece of the ongoing struggle between tech giants Microsoft and Google. Released in mid-February, Google caught Bing apparently stealing their search results.

Unfortunately, the search engine optimization (seo) industry is an industry that has been under recent observance for “black hat” services. Since the industry is mostly unregulated, there are some seo companies that do not practice good ethics and get their clients banned from major search engines. There has been a heavy crackdown by search engine titan Google in recent months, and calls for all companies to adhere to a code of ethics.

Ken Wisnefski, Founder and CEO of WebiMax, the nation’s leading online marketing firm, rated by TopSeos.com, announced today that WebiMax has expanded its domestic operations to include five strategic sales and customer support locations throughout the United States. These sales and support facilities will be based in New York City, Boston, Miami, San Francisco and Chicago.

Tech titan Google has added five new templates to their Blogger software, a move to help improve the visibility and navigation of the blog. The 5 new layouts are Mosaic, Flipcard, Timeslide, Sidebar, and Snapshot. In addition, there are “send feedback” and “learn more” tabs conveniently located at the top of the window. Any blog created in Blogger now has this functionality by adding “/view” to the end of the URL.

In a response to high demand, Google has added a new phone support feature to AdWords. People can now call in for support by dialing 1-866-2Google. This service runs from 9:00am EST to 8:00pm EST, Monday through Friday. Prior to this added feature, customer support was mainly thorough FAQs and forums.

Kenneth C. Wisnefski, Founder and CEO of WebiMax, the nation’s #1 rated search engine optimization (SEO), website design, and reputation management company, was interviewed on MSNBC’s Your Business featuring JJ Ramberg on Sunday, April 3, 2011. Your Business, a weekly show that features highly successful CEO’s and Entrepreneurs, discusses trends and hot topics in small business and airs Saturday and Sunday mornings on major news network MSNBC.