Search Engines and Social Media Part 3

The ability for Google to compile data on Internet users from their searches, IP addresses, emails, blogs, and websites is both brilliant and scary at the same time. They gather a digital profile of Internet users via services like iGoogle, ISPs, gmail, Blogger, and Google Analytics respectively as we explained.

The aggregate of all this information gives them a personal snap shot of your interests, concerns, and habits online. With this information they can serve up ads to you with deadly precision.

This is what we call personal search. More and more I am finding Google is showing me ads on sites not necessarily the theme of the site but the results are based on my personal tastes.

Google as been coercing me with link options to setup my blog a certain way (more recently on their servers) and inticing me to take free services like Google Analytics, gmail, Google docs, etc. to get data on my personal interests and habits. This is happening to 100s of millions of people world wide.

So let's face it Google is developing a digital profile on Internet users. So it will become increasingly important for people to shape and grow their digital profile on the Internet in a way that shapes their interests. We'll continue along this discussion soon.

Kick the Science (KTS) Search Engine Terms

1. Search Engine - Is a database of web sites that is ranked according to the computerized criteria called an algorithm. Search engine programmers (engineers) decide in advance what is the configuration of the algorithm.

Various search engines determine ranking on their own different factors of importance or relevancy. For number of years the Google search engine has been the most popular search engine. Google even supplies the search results for lesser known search engines like AOL. Google conservatively has a 51% marketshare in search.

This all changed a little recently after Microsoft developed the Bing search engine. Microsoft also purchased a important share of Yahoo! and it's search properties (like Alta Vista, AlltheWeb, Yahoo! search marketing).

Searchers input keyword queries into search boxes and are given results from the databases of the search engines in accordance with the ranking algorithm from whatever search engine they are using.

In other words, search engines index sites it feels will be of value to its customers, which are Internet surfers searching for information.

The most important concept to grasp with a search engine, is that it uses an automated computerized system to find and rank the sites within its database of web sites.

2. Internet Directory - An Internet directory is a large listing of categorized web sites - however the concept that should be understood with the Internet directories, is that they actually have editors that decide what goes into the directory. Remember an Internet directory is decided and managed by human editors, while in contrast, a search engine is ranked by a computerized algorithm
or system. Directories are important to get links from because, they will raise your rankings in the Google algorithm (which is based on Page Rank or links from other sites to a great extent).

3. SEO - Search Engine Optimization From the Tao of Search Engine Promotion represents the Ying or Female Principle in that it is more fluid and receptive to the algorithms of the search engines, which of course you - do not control. SEO promotion is using known conventions and in some cases deconstructing the algorithms of the developers of the search engines and working with them. In other words it is like Judo where you use the momentum and power of the search engines to build your business. You will have to be constantly vigilant, in order to try to stay abreast of the latest developments in SEO promotion.

4. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising with the search engines is bidding for particular keyword phrases or search terms used most frequently by Internet users related to information on certain niches and sectors. Overture was the first great pay-per-click advertising sales channel for the search engines. It presently represents Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Alta Vista, Hot Bot, and related partners allowing advertisers to bid on particular keywords. Google presently runs its own PPC Search Engine advertising branch called Google's Adwords Select. Since PPC advertising is so expensive use it in moderation by setting daily and monthly budgets (otherwise for high volume searched keywords you could go broke). After setting budgets, which you do in the Overture and Google advertising interfaces, use PPC to test your conversion rates for subscribers, sales, etc., and constantly monitor it and fine-tune it. You want to increase your conversation rates.

This is critical because as we alluded to the expense of PPC in earlier in this article the typical major ad agency or corporate brand only spends $5 - $15 dollars to reach a thousand people (CPM). Although they may go higher for a responsive direct mail lists like $100 or $150 to reach a thousand people. In PPC advertising small business are usually paying at least 35 cents on the dollar (for any word with any real competition) to reach a thousand people or $350 dollars. I have seen and experienced people paying $2.50 a click or $2250 dollars to reach a thousand people. The true expense of PPC is never discussed by experts in that industry. Any small business using PPC should have an outstanding product ready for prime time, to see any return in investment. Alternately, they should only use it for limited testing or to get a product quickly to market on-line.

Given the expense of PPC some small business people might be better off buying classified direct response advertising in a niche publication or obtaining ad space in ezines.

Another point to discuss in PPC is how the major companies hurt their advertisers (stab them in the back) by using pop-up blockers, which hurts the advertisers ability to collect email addresses on the front end, and with spam filters block even legitimate marketers ability to reach opt-in subscribers on the back end. Google is more of a front end pop-up blocker, AOL is more of an email blocker, while Yahoo is both. There are better ways to stop email and web site spam.

What is important is that small business, if it is not careful with PPC could be paying AOL, Google, and Yahoo/Overture to put them out of business.

5. Pay Per Inclusion is paying to be included in the database of a search engine or Internet directory. Presently it is free to be included in the Google search engine. You just need a link to your site from a few other sites already in the Google database and your site will be spidered in many cases. Recently it has been announced Yahoo will charge a fee to update your new content into their search engine database. From what I understand if you are already listed in Yahoo its all well and good, but any new content that you put on your site will not be indexed (thus so up in the search results without paying a fee).

6. Search Terms (AKA Keywords or Keyword Phrases) - Search terms and more specifically keyword phrases are words searchers put in a search box to find information on a particular product, service, or item. Keywords and Keyword phrases have different tiers. For instance the top tier keyword business probably receives 500,000 searches a month. But it is so general that it would not be a good keyword for which to optimize your site. However, the second tier Keyword phrase "small business" would have less searches, but it is more of a targeted search. The third tier keyword phrases are even more targeted and would be ideal for persons to optimize their sites for although there are less monthly searches for them.

7. Search Engine Algorithm - Algorithms are sets of rules according to which search engines rank web pages. Figuring out the algorithms is a major part of SEO. The thinking is that if you understand how they calculate relevance, you can make specific pages on your site super relevant for specific search terms. For more on algorithms and SEO in general, please refer to the Search Engine Yearbook.

Future Trends 2010 Web Marketing Webinar 3.0

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What is a Search Engine? How do They Work?

Every month there are over 113 Billion searches done online! We all use search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!: to find Internet information. Did you ever wonder how they actually work?

Discover the inner workings of search engines and Internet directories with this free video.

Learn how search engines work. Discover the inner workings of search engines and Internet directories. If you are online more than likely you have used search engines to find things.

We all use them online but if you are a business person you may want to know how they work. This screen capture video by dadpreneur and searchpreneur Kamau Austin illustrates how search engines work. If you are trying to learn more about the use of search engines start here with this video. It explains the basics of how they work and what they do.

Is this Crazy Economy Driving Your Business Local

Is there Opportunity for Your Business Despite the Depression/Recession?

Is there Opportunity for Your Business...
Despite the Deep-Recession? I feel too many parallels are being drawn between our period and the Great Recession. I don't think we do our ancestors justice to compare our time periods.

We have a lot of advantages our forebears didn't have. For instance the Internet gives us cheap access to International markets.

Check Out this Video

On the other hand geo-targeting technology used by companies like Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook helps local businesses targets customers for free? eBay is like the world's largest employer of businesses. Never before could so many people get in the business game. Do you think now is a good time for your business?


Are You Utilizing Google Local for Your Local Business? If you answered no to these questions now is the time to do so.

7 Places to Get Web Traffic -- (1) SEO

In this series we have talked about the best places to get web traffic. We mentioned the number one way to get web traffic is on the search engines. We mentioned different forms of Search Engine Traffic and how you can choose between SEO, PPC, and learning it yourself.

Today I want to share a little more about SEO.

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is a way of getting good rankings in Google in what's known as the organic results.

Organic results is just a fancy way of saying the regular site listings without bidding or paying for better visibility. These are the listings on the left hand side of the search engine result pages or SERPs and below the sponsored results on the top.

60% of web users first surf the organic results on the search engines before using the sponsored listings. Users feel many times that the organic result listings have more value because the search engines rank them according to relevance.

Most searchers don't feel advertisers are as useful to their searches and view them with caution. On the other hand organic search listings are many times seen as being reviewed by an objective 3rd party.

Many feel the search engines have reviewed the organic sites to get the most topical destinations for their searches. This of course isn't actually the case because search engines are primarily algorithm based but people feel Google gets them the best results.

This is why organic search visibility is important for your website to achieve. We will touch more upon this in a couple of days.

Learn more about search engine promotion and web traffic at
Always On Top the eBook