Anybody will tell you that to make money working online you must have at least a basic knowledge of SEO. Search Engine Optimization is just another tool in your marketing bag. If used properly it can bring you more customers, more prospects, and more clients faster than any other form of marketing. But, like any other form of marketing it requires a plan. Before you even start to optimize your site you need to know what your goals are. What kind of person do you want to attract to your site? What keywords will you use? What kind of conversion rate do you want to achieve? Whatever your conversion goal is it will involve a living breathing person on the other end of the Internet connection. Before the existence of the Internet, before the existence of direct mail marketing, conversions involved face-to-face interactions. Keep this in mind while developing your marketing plan. Search engine marketing is NOT about tricking the search engines, it is NOT about how much you pay per click and it is NOT about how many websites link to yours. At the end of the day, it is about simulating that face-to-face interaction as closely as possible.

When your prospective customer reaches your website they probably will not know who you are. They are probably not familiar with your company and, most importantly, they will not want to be ’sold’ to.

‘But wait’ you say. ‘I have to make money. I have something to sell. That’s why I spent so much time and money bringing people to my website’.

Yes, but here is something to ponder. When you are shopping in a brick and mortar store, say for instance that you are shopping for a new stove. What are you initially looking for?

INFORMATION!

You want to know what makes the £600 model better than the £400 model. You ask yourself, “do I really need all the features of the £600 model or can I live with the £400 model?” So you are sitting there reading all of the information on the tags. You are gathering information. If a salesman walks up in the first few moments, you tell him that you are ‘just looking’ to get him to back off. It isn’t until you have settled on one or two models that you ask for help. It isn’t until you have gathered all of the INFORMATION that you even glance in the direction of the salesman, fearing that even looking at him before you are ready will cause him to come running over and pressure you into buying the most expensive model in the store.

You don’t want to be sold to, you want to make an informed decision. And when you finally do ask for a salesperson, what are you looking for? MORE INFORMATION!

You are looking for more information to support your buying decision. Only when you have answers all of your questions do you ever pull out that credit card and make the purchase.

Keep that in mind when you are creating your Internet marketing plan.

The successful salesman knows that he has products to sell. He knows that he must sell X number of stoves to put food on the table. But most importantly, the successful salesman knows that in order to make the sale he must know his product. He must have the INFORMATION his customers are looking for. He must know how to communicate that knowledge and how to make the sale passively without being a ‘pushy salesman’.

So, back to how to market ineffectively online….

If you really want to lose potential customers; if your passion is to sit around all day figuring out how to trick the search engines into ranking your website in the #1 or #2 spot; if you love paying way too much for pay per click traffic; if you are absolutely sure that you do not need to pay attention to proper search engine optimization, then here are a few sure fire ways to completely waste your time with your website. Here is how not to make money online:

· Use LOTS of cute graphics… especially the dancing cowboy one… everyone loves that right?

· Put everything you can possibly think of on the first page

· Include links to every single site you can think of

· Link exchange with everyone that asks

· Ask everyone to link exchange with you

· Make your contact information hard to find

· List your contact information everywhere and anywhere it fits

· Have no form of sensible navigation whatsoever

· Name your home page ‘home’, your contact page ‘contact me’ etc

· Use images to link your inner pages

· Have at least three broken links on every page

· Use the worst possible picture of yourself and make sure it is badly cropped

· Use the same title tag on every single page

· Use the same description on every single page

· Build your entire site in flash (remember to include the broken links)

· Hide text on your website so that only the search engines can see it

And the #1 thing you can do to completely waste your time with your website is….

· Don’t include any information anywhere about anything to do with your business

May your success be more than you can hold!

Google Updates Apps for Smartphone Use

Google adds smartphone security features to mobile enterprise apps to make them more mobile IT-friendly. Is this a push to take on RIM in the workplace?

February 4, 2010
By Michelle Megna: form internetnews

Google has made an effort to get its suite of productivity applications into the enterprise for some time. One area that was lacking was support for mobile devices, since IT managers like to lock down their staff smartphones as securely as desktops and laptops, if not more so. Today the search giant is releasing updated apps that will appease management’s concerns.

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Google’s suite of productivity applications has been upgraded over the past year to make them more compatible with smartphones, but today the Internet giant unveiled new features that may be critical for mobile IT managers more worried about smartphone security and mobile device management.

Google Apps, which includes Gmail, calendar, and documents apps, was recently updated to sync with the iPhone and Microsoft Windows Mobile handhelds, but largely lacking were features that would mitigate IT concerns.

Today Google is rolling out new administrative control features, for instance, remote wipe and more stringent password protocols, for Google Apps Premier and Google Apps Education users managing iPhone, Nokia E series and Windows Mobile devices, according to a Google mobile blog post by Bryan Mawhinney, mobile software engineer at Google.

The new features will let administrators manage a group of phones from one control panel, at which they can do the following: remotely wipe data from lost or stolen smarthpones; lock idle devices after a period of inactivity; require passwords on each handset; set minimum lengths for more secure passwords; and require passwords to include letters, numbers and punctuation.

Read the full story at Enterprise Mobile Today:
Google Makes Online Collaboration Play with Enterprise Apps

Stock Picks: Yahoo, Amazon

From Businesweeks

Yahoo Inc. (YHOO)

Citigroup reiterates buy; raises estimate

Yahoo Inc., owner of the second-most-used Internet search engine in the U.S., reported fourth-quarter sales that topped analysts’ estimates after the close of trading Jan. 26. Excluding revenue passed on to partner sites, sales were $1.26 billion. The company’s total sales fell 4.1% to $1.73 billion, yet still edged out its own forecast of $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion.

Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney said on Jan. 27 that Yahoo’s $1.73 billion in gross revenue and $457 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, beat his respective estimates of $1.66 billion and $427 million and Wall Street consensus views of $1.67 billion and $433 million; Yahoo’s GAAP earnings per share (EPS) of 11 cents was in line with his estimate as well as the street consensus view. Mahaney said in a note that Yahoo’s first-quarter guidance was mixed vs. the Street estimate: the company’s midpoint gross revenue forecast of $1.63 billion topped the Street expectation at $1.61 billion, but its midpoint EBITDA forecast of $365 million missed the Street projection at $400 million.

Mahaney said the big story for Yahoo is display advertising, which surged 26% quarter-over-quarter to $503 million. He noted that most (though not all) of the company’s ad verticals are recovering, pricing is “firming up”, and Yahoo has key inventory for advertisers.

The analyst kept his 2010 EPS estimate at 47 cents, but raised his 53 cents forecast for 2011 to 56 cents. He has a $22 price target on the shares.

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)

Kaufman Bros. upgrades to buy from hold

Kaufman Bros. analyst Aaron Kessler raised his rating on shares of Internet retailer Amazon.com Inc. on Jan. 27. He said in a note that the stock has corrected 15% from recent highs, and he believes it now offers an attractive risk/reward for investors.

Kessler said he expects Amazon to post strong fourth quarter results on Jan. 28, adding that his GAAP EPS estimate of 77 cents is 7% above the Wall Street consensus view. He also expects Amazon to continue to gain market share, “driven by its value proposition of low prices, free shipping, high trust factor, and added selection”.

The analyst maintained a $155 price target on the stock, indicating “approximately 30% upside” from current levels.

Bing and Yahoo search engine

Yahoo Revenue Dips in Q4, But Shows Signs of Life

Embattled Web firm posts sequential advertising increases as recession woes fade.

By Kenneth Corbin: from internetnews

Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) today reported financial results for the fourth quarter of 2009, posting an overall decline in revenue from the comparable period in 2008, but still meeting Wall Street’s expectations and showing signs that the company’s slumping advertising business is on the upswing.

Yahoo posted earnings of $119 million, or 11 cents per share, in line with analysts’ expectations and reversing a $278 million loss, or 22 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Fourth-quarter net revenue dipped to $1.26 billion from $1.38 billion, but that was slightly ahead of analysts’ expectation of $1.23 billion, according to polling by Thomson Reuters. That figure that excludes the commissions paid to Yahoo’s advertising partners.

In the meantime, Yahoo posted overall revenue for the quarter of $1.73 billion, down 4 percent from the same period in 2008, but still an improvement over the 12 percent annual decline Yahoo has posted over the first three quarters of 2009.

Display revenues on Yahoo properties increased 26 percent over the third quarter, while search revenues were up 4 percent, giving the embattled company hope that the recession is abating and its turnaround strategy is beginning to bear fruit.

“The fourth quarter marked a strong finish to 2009, which was a transformative year for Yahoo,” CEO Carol Bartz said in a statement. “We beat the high end of our revenue guidance, saw demand for premium display advertising improve significantly, and grew owned and operated search advertising revenue sequentially for the first time since the third quarter of 2008.”

Yahoo reported overall revenues for 2009 of $6.46 billion, a decline of 10 percent from 2008 driven in large part by the recession.

But for some analysts, Yahoo was in line to bounce back the strongest as the recession appears to ebb.

“We continue to like Yahoo shares and it remains our top pick for 2010,” Doug Anmuth, an analyst who tracks Internet companies for Barclays Capital, wrote in a research note earlier this week.

“Yahoo is well leveraged to an ad rebound in both display and search, and we believe that display in particular will show stronger trends in 4Q and into 2010.”

In the meantime, Yahoo’s ad mix is in a bit of a limbo as it continues to await approval from the Justice Department, which is conducting an antitrust review of its search-advertising pact with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), a deal the companies brokered in an attempt to better compete with search leader Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

Yahoo executives have said they expect the deal to close in the first quarter of this year.

Speaking on a conference call with financial analysts, Bartz said that Yahoo does not expect to begin netting money from the revenue share through the Microsoft deal until 2011, after the companies’ advertising and engineering operations have been integrated.

She reiterated the company’s commitment to continue to compete in search irrespective of the deal, both in terms of growing query volume and improving the monetization rates per search.

But Yahoo may be even more bullish on its fortunes in display.

“While many of you didn’t believe me, I kept saying through 2009 that brand advertising would come back. It always has,” Bartz said on today’s conference call. “You can’t position a brand with keywords.”

She added, “We have some of the best, if not the best, premium inventory on the Internet.”

Over the past year under Bartz’s tenure, Yahoo has redesigned some of its major properties, including its home page, which she said has sold out of inventory on several occasions, and its search and e-mail services.

Last year, Yahoo launched a major global ad campaign that was in large part aimed at advertisers in an effort to remind them that after all the turmoil the company has been through in recent years, it remains one of the most popular destinations on the Web.

Bartz said that the domestic portion of that campaign is now shifting gears to focus more on individual products that the company offers, with less emphasis on re-energizing the Yahoo brand.

As much effort as Yahoo has spent building out its content portfolio, Bartz said the company continues to grapple with the challenge of targeting ads based on users’ interests and preferences.

“Truth be told, no one has uncovered the holy grail of making advertising as relevant as content is 100 percent of the time,” she said. “If we can do this, we can create a better experience for both the advertiser and the user.”

Looking ahead to 2010, she said Yahoo is on a path of investment and growth, seeking to tamp down speculation that she plans to jettison numerous properties that don’t fit with the company’s vision.

Earlier this month, Yahoo unloaded the open source e-mail provider Zimbra to VMware, and Bartz acknowledged that there could be a few more such deals over the coming year, but that Yahoo is not headed for a firesale.

“2010 is not about divestitures for Yahoo,” she said. “For us, 2010 is about acquisition and investments,” she added, though she was quick to caution that Yahoo is not planning any large-scale purchases, but rather smaller, more targeted properties that could fill a niche.

Google’s Display-Ad Sales Should Top $1 Billion

As analysts say rising demand for Internet display ads will begin paying off for Google in 2010, one asks: “Is this a $10 billion business?” Douglas MacMillan

Douglas MacMillan from Businessweek

Google CEO Eric Schmidt hinted in July that display advertising would probably be the next of his company’s businesses to generate $1 billion in sales. Analysts say 2010 is the year he’ll deliver on that prediction.

Display ads are likely to contribute a little more than $1 billion, or about 4% of Google’s (GOOG) total sales this year—an increase of as much 40% over last year—say analysts, including Doug Anmuth at Barclays Capital. That marks an important threshold for Mountain View (Calif.)-based Google, which makes most of its sales from ads placed alongside search results and which has been criticized for not getting more revenue from other businesses. Demand for display ads, which include marketing messages in videos and banner ads adorning Web pages, may rise faster this year than for search-related ads, according to eMarketer. “You have to go somewhere else to get the next legs of growth,” says Jim Friedland, an analyst at Cowen & Co.

In display advertising, Google lags behind Yahoo! (YHOO), which had revenue of $6.5 billion in 2009 that was generated largely from its display ads. Google has tried to catch up in part through acquisitions. Two of the biggest were aimed at the display ad market: The company paid $1.65 billion for YouTube in 2005 and $3.1 billion for DoubleClick in 2007.

Sales of video and banner ads on YouTube, the world’s most popular video site, are expected by analysts at Barclays to contribute the bulk of Google’s display revenue this year, about $700 million. And with DoubleClick, Google acquired a technology that handles the placement of display ads on sites across the Web. “Display is now a key business for us,” says Susan Wojcicki, Google’s vice-president of product management and one of the company’s earliest employees.

Neal Mohan, the executive in charge of Google’s display business, says Google will draw on its strength in search-related advertising to expand in display. It became the leader in search by using algorithms to help it know which ads to place where. “Our goal is to bring the science of search to the art of display,” Mohan says.

TV and print ads shift to Web display

Mohan says the company is developing tools to help marketers create more effective banner ads and automate their placement. To that end, Google in December bought Teracent, which customizes colors, language, and other elements of a banner ad, depending on who is viewing it. Soon, Google will pair Teracent’s technology with DoubleClick’s ad-placement expertise and its own flagship search ad program, AdWords. Mohan is also trying to expand DoubleClick Ad Exchange—a kind of stock market launched last fall for buying and trading display advertising space on the Web—and offer further options for advertisers on YouTube.

Companies tend to use online display advertising to raise awareness of a brand or product while they deploy search ads to encourage customers to take a specific action—for instance, click on a Web site or make a purchase. Because search ads are often cheaper and their effectiveness easier to measure, budget-conscious advertisers flocked to them during the recession. Now, however, display is getting a boost as big advertisers that have traditionally focused branding efforts on TV and print are shifting more ad dollars to the Web. “There’s a lot of money to be tapped that otherwise would be allocated to TV, that will be moved online,” says technology analyst Greg Sterling. This year, online display advertising may grow 8.2% to $7.9 billion in the U.S., from $7.3 billion in 2009, eMarketer says. Search advertising is expected to rise 5.6% to $11.4 billion.

Google is trying to help advertisers better measure the effectiveness of display ads. “One of the challenges we put to ourselves was: ‘What are the ways a brand advertiser would look to measure [ad impact]?’,” Mohan says. The result: Campaign Insights, a tool developed over a year by dozens of Google engineering teams around the world before it was released in December.

Hair-care company Regis was one of the first to test Campaign Insights. It ran banner ads for Hair Club For Men across hundreds of Google’s partner sites while Campaign Insights tracked the number of people who had seen the ads and then performed related Web searches. “Display [advertising] drives searches and Web site visits,” says Luke Hubbard, vice-president of Beverly Hills (Calif.)-based Integrated Media Solutions, the ad agency that coordinated the campaign for Regis. “We knew that effect was there before, but now we are able to quantify it.” Impressed by the results, Regis increased spending on display ads for the brand in 2010, and Integrated Media Solutions has signed up seven other clients eager to tap the analytics.

Yahoo pitching display-ad strengths

Google offers Campaign Insights free to advertisers that spend above a certain amount on other products. It’s inexpensive and easy for Google to comb through search data, compared to the effort required for Yahoo to offer such a service, says eMarketer analyst David Hallerman. “Google has a lot of potential opportunity in that they can add a lot of these analytics that usually cost companies more,” he says.

Competitors say they’re bracing for a fight. During Yahoo’s Jan. 26 earnings call with analysts, CEO Carol Bartz talked up brand advertisers’ increasing interest in getting their ads placed on professional content sites—a strength for Yahoo. “As these marketers look to position new products and brands in the marketplace, they will need display ads to tell their story,” she said.

To succeed in display, Google has also had to hone its ability to market products through a people-friendly sales force. In search, Google has tended to rely more on the technical effectiveness of its products, analysts say. “Advertising is a lot of hand-holding and schmoozing,” says analyst Sterling. “Historically, Google has not been good on managing the people side.”

That’s changing, says Amy Curtis-McIntyre, senior vice-president of brand communications for hotel chain Hyatt. She says Google has begun regularly sending sales reps to her Chicago offices. “When they develop new search tools or new advertising tools, they bring them to us and present them in a usable way,” says Curtis-McIntyre.

With $1 billion in sight, how big can Google’s display business get? “Google is incredibly well-positioned to be a winner here,” Friedland says. The question he’s now asking: “Is this a $10 billion business?”