Googles Competition - Search 2.0

Im not talking about Yahoo or even MSN. (They still exist ya know...)

What I am talking about are the new batch of search engines cropping up which might just offer something better. Thats right. Something BETTER than the all mighty Google...

From the attached CNN article:

"Some sites, like Twine and hakia, will try to personalize searches, separating out results you would find interesting, based on your Web use. Others, like Searchme, offer iTunes-like interfaces that let users shuffle through photos and images instead of the standard list of hyperlinks. Kosmix bundles information by type -- from Twitter, from Facebook, from blogs, from the government -- to make it easier to consume.

And Lets not forget Twitter itself... who is trying to capitalize on the warp-speed pace of online news today by offering real-time searches of online chatter -- something Google's computers have yet to replicate.

Facebook and FriendFeed also are experimenting with real-time searches, according to news reports. But each of these searches operates only within its own social network. Scoopler is another real-time site that's trying to aggregate info from all of these sites.

And all of these are seeing more competition, as two new sites -- TweetMeme and OneRiot -- launched new or updated real-time searches recently."

If you care, or have ever used a search engine... check out this CNN article... New search engines aspire to supplement Google

Just when you start to figure it out........ Read more!

Official Google Blog: Two new improvements to Google results pages

Official Google Blog: Two new improvements to Google results pages

The longer "snippets" is important. It is quite possible to have FEWER results above the fold now. This puts your organic placement in a more important light. With less real estate, it is even more important to have your SEO operating effectively so you, at the very minimium, come in above the fold.

Its now more important than ever to be ranked #1 in organic placement. Read more!

Official Google Blog: Stop bouncing: tips for website success

Official Google Blog: Stop bouncing: tips for website success

Really good info on Bounce Rate from Google. This should help the dealers on the eCertification Program (Fusion website) better understand Bounce Rate.

Please understand, if your site is indexed correctly and pulls relevant pages for searches, bounces are a good thing as the viewer "searched, clicked, got their info from you, and clicked out"... Read more!

Video - Im not making this stuff up people

A few posts ago I wrote about how popular video is becoming on the web and its importance to search as well as how it directly relates to your stores online presence.

It was December data of 9 BILLION videos watched on YouTube in the US alone and how Google considers video as relevant as text in SEO. Well comScore has just published their January data. OMG! From 9 BILLION videos watched in December 2008 to 14.8 BILLION - in just the US.

Just one more reason why YOU need to seriously consider VSEO.

Click the link to read it. Americans’ Time Spent Viewing Jumps 15 Percent versus Previous Month



RESTON, VA, March 4, 2009 – comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released January 2009 data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that U.S. Internet users viewed 14.8 billion online videos during the month, representing an increase of 4 percent versus December 2008.YouTube led the growth charge, accounting for 91 percent of the incremental gain in the number of videos viewed versus December, as it surpassed 100 million viewers for the first time.



Google Sites Adds to Lead in Video Market Share

In January, Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property with 6.4 billion videos viewed (43 percent online video market share), with YouTube.com accounting for more than99 percent of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 552 million videos (3.7 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 374 million (2.5 percent) and Viacom Digital with 288 million (1.9 percent). Megavideo climbed 15 percent (103 million videos) in January to capture a spot in the top ten for the first time.



Top U.S. Online Video Properties* by Videos Viewed

January 2009

Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations

Source: comScore Video Metrix

Property
Videos

(000)
Share (%) of

Videos

Total Internet
14,831,607
100.0

Google Sites
6,367,638
42.9

Fox Interactive Media
551,991
3.7

Yahoo! Sites
374,161
2.5

Viacom Digital
287,615
1.9

Microsoft Sites
267,475
1.8

HULU.COM
250,473
1.7

Turner Network
195,983
1.3

AOL LLC
184,808
1.2

Disney Online
141,452
1.0

MEGAVIDEO.COM
102,857
0.7


*Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks. Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video.



Google Sites Surpasses 100 Million Viewers in January

More than 147 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 101 videos per viewer in January. Google Sites grew to 102 million online video viewers during the month, or more than two out of every three Internet users who watched video. Fox Interactiveranked second with 62.1 million viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites (41.9 million) and Microsoft Sites (30.0 million).



Top U.S. Online Video Properties* by Unique Viewers

January 2009

Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations

Source: comScore Video Metrix

Property
Unique Viewers (000)
Average Videos per Viewer

Total Internet
147,322
100.7

Google Sites
101,870
62.5

Fox Interactive Media
62,109
8.9

Yahoo! Sites
41,859
8.9

Microsoft Sites
30,042
8.9

AOL LLC
27,198
6.8

HULU.COM
24,448
10.2

CBS Corporation
24,215
4.2

Viacom Digital
24,126
11.9

Turner Network
22,979
8.5

Disney Online
13,435
10.5


*Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks. Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video.



Other notable findings from January 2009 include:

76.8 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
The average online video viewer watched 356 minutes of video (approximately 6 hours), up 15 percent versus December.
100.9 million viewers watched 6.3 billion videos on YouTube.com (62.6 videos per viewer).
54.1 million viewers watched 473 million videos on MySpace.com (8.7 videos per viewer).
The duration of the average online video was 3.5 minutes, up from 3.2 minutes per video in December.
The duration of the average online video viewed at Megavideo was 24.9 minutes, higher than any other video property in the top ten.
And here is the rest of it. Read more!

How to create Google Analytics Conversion Goals

Saw this video on youtube this morning.

Its a scant 7 minutes long so please take the time to watch.

It describes how easy it is to setup CONVERSION GOALS on Google Analytics. For you dealers on the "eCert" program, this is very important. Its part of the process to measure your eBusiness marketing results.

The video is done by WebShare Design. They have many other GA videos on their website and youtube so do yourself a favor and check them out. www.websharedesign.com

RETHINK EVERYTHING

Read more!

Im FIRST on the Google

Wanted to give you guys an example of the VSEO I am talking about.

On 2/9/2009 around 10 am I pushed the Toyota Tundra Heat commercial up to 3 or 4 videos sites (YouTube, metacafe etc) with proper SEO on it.

As of 6 am 2/10/2009 I am the first result and 2 of the top 4 results on google with a search of "tundra heat commercial"

Took me a total of 5 minutes to tag it and upload it. Less than 24 hours later I'm the number one result and half of the top four results.

Cost me NOTHING but 5 minutes of my time.

Imagine if you did the same for "tundra insert city name here" or "civic insert city name here" for some competition annihilation or "2009 Camry Bluetooth operation" or "why us" or "customer testimonials". It goes on and on.

We just spoke about the 9 BILLION people in the US who watched videos on YouTube in December 2008. Its a pretty safe bet some of those 9 BILLION videos were automotive related. Start building those video libraries.

You get the idea.

RETHINK EVERYTHING
Read more!

Google THIS...

"toyota corolla torrance"

This is BIG people... really big. With a little work (lifting those weights people) you can do the same....

Site indexing by search engines can take up to 6 months to fully propagate and having UNSURPASSED SEO is a must but theres more...

With the recent YOUTUBE passing of Yahoo as the 2nd highest search engine its even more important now to understand and utilize VSEO.

You MUST start keeping a library of video clips and pushing them to the web.. to EVERY SITE that will let you.. there are services that can assist you with this such as TubeMogul and Traffic Geyser to name a couple. They will basically take your footage and push to multiple video hosting sites such as:

AOL Video
Blip.TV
Crackle.com
Daily Motion.com
Google video
MetaCafe.com
Myspace
Revver
Stupid Videos
Veoh
Yahoo video
YouTube

But it takes more than just pushing the videos up to the web. MUCH MORE.

Here are a few pointers to get you started:

1. File Names - Give the video file a catchy and relevant name that is related to your keyword or phrase. Once you have uploaded your video site map there is added opportunity for these keywords and phrases to be found and indexed by the search engines.
2. Meta Data - Add meta data to your video files. Again, use relevant meta data, like you would when you are carrying out other Search engine optimisation campaigns.
3. Transcripts - Transcripts of the video will add credible content to the page and give the spiders relevant information to crawl. The transcript should make reference to keywords, relevant content and your brand.
4. Outbound Linking - If you add video content to other sites such as You Tube, make sure that you avail of their ability to link back to your own site.
5. Video Length - Add shorter videos to keep your audience interested. If your video is quite lengthy, consider breaking it down into smaller chunks. This will also give more quality video content to optimise.
6. Branding – Have your branding displayed in your video to enhance your brand awareness.
7. Inbound Linking – link your videos to important keywords throughout your site to enhance their value.
8. Rating – allow users / visitors to rate your video

Oh and one more thing... VSEO only takes about 5 days to propagate... not 6 months like traditional SEO...

YOU CAN BE ON THE FIRST PAGE OF GOOGLE, IF NOT THE FIRST RESULT, WITHIN 24 HOURS PEOPLE!!!!

RETHINK EVERYTHING
Read more!

Backlinking

Progressive Internet Managers should know about backlinking and its importance in your SEO campaign.

For those that don't, here is a brief review.

Backlinking is the term used to describe websites with links back to your website. Easy enough. The important item here is that this assists with your SEO as the search engines use this to increase your relevancy. Think of it as a vote for your website.

More important than just having many linkbacks is the quality of the sites they are linking from. A link from Toyota.com to your site is a higher quality linkback than one from your childs myspace account. Its still valuable, just not as valuable.

Want to check how many sites linkback to you? Read on....

To check linkbacks to your site, follow the following:

Google - in the search bar type in "link:http://www.yoursite.com" Where "yoursite" is your URL. As a point of reference Toyota .com has 3100 listed as of this writing.

Yahoo - in the search bar type in "linkdomain:www.yourdomain.com" where "yourdomain" is your URL. Please note - do not use "http" for Yahoo. Yahoo shows over 766,000 linkbacks.

Yahoo gives us deeper linkbacks than Google.

To start increasing linkbacks and improving SEO, make sure your signature on forums and boards includes links to your site. Get your URL out there. Read more!