SEARCH NEWS – SEPTEMBER 2013
Sell SEO Make Money Search News is your monthly source to keep you up to date on the latest trends in search engine marketing. You’ll know about emerging trends in online marketing and we’ll explain how those trends can be put to use in your business.
The Cost of SEO Keeps Going Up. Here’s Why.
Article spinning, keyword stuffing, excessive bookmarks, paid links, thin content, duplicate content, excessive blog commenting, etc. were once widely regarded as acceptable SEO tactics. Now those tactics can land you in big trouble with Google. Thanks to Google Panda and Penguin, nothing about SEO is quick, easy or cheap.
Skilled SEO firms write purposeful articles, blog posts, press releases and interviews, produce creative videos and infographics and use other formats that include very specific information about a company. Not only will high quality SEO providers prepare with extensive research, they will take care to write inspired content and post it to suitable websites for publishing. Sure, Google demands quality content. But with the company name, location, names of company executives and so on featured in the content, businesses expect quality too!
The Social Media Advertising Scramble
After its IPO missteps, Facebook went all out to raise revenue with numerous advertising products. Though plenty of money has been made, particularly with mobile advertising, Facebook plans to simplify its advertising product based on feedback from marketers. The launch of Facebook video ads, scheduled for Fall 2013, is on hold due to concerns about user experience. At an estimated $1 million to $2.4 million per daily spot, we think it’s safe to say that Facebook will figure it out and start rolling those video ads before too long.
Instagram, acquired by Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion in cash and stock, plans to begin selling ads within the year. Earlier this month, Instagram announced that it now has over 150 million monthly active users, a 50% increase since February 2013.
Twitter has Promoted Tweets and is experimenting with Tailored Ads, an advertising product that is very similar to retargeting. This month, Twitter announced that it has acquired MoPub Inc. for about $350 million in stock. Many industry insiders believe Twitter is ramping up its advertising options in preparation for an IPO.
Google Goes In-Depth
Billions of internet searches happen every day, yet people do look to other sources for information and answers. Some people still consult the encyclopedia! In 2010, after 244 years, Encyclopedia Britannica went out of print, but encyclopedias live on in DVD format.
Encyclopedias and other information sources may have been just as handy as search engines when we were tied to desktops and laptops. Mobile devices have given search engines an advantage in terms of convenience and Google is now on a mission to have the answers for anything and everything a person could want to know,
Last year, Google conducted the Daily Information Needs Study to get some insight into what people want to know, but don’t search for. From the research, Google learned that about 10% of users’ daily information needs involve learning about a broad topic. With the recently released feature, In-Depth Articles, Google intends to deliver relevant, high quality content that will help the searcher explore a topic in-depth.
This article explains the steps that help Google find your content—maybe you’ll be rewarded for your high quality content with a spot in the in-depth search results block!
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Recently, Google introduced Carousel for local search results. Now, when you search for a local business like a hotel or restaurant, the results appear in an interactive carousel at the top of the page. Click on one of the results in the carousel and you’ll see the address, photos, overall review-based score and links to the actual reviews.
*According to the most recent internet usage data published in June 2012 by Nielsen Online and reported by 
More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month and over 4 billion hours of video are watched. YouTube is the third most visited site, just behind Google and Facebook (source: Alexa). Some of those videos go viral, creating a YouTube sensation. (Where would Justin Bieber be without YouTube? Probably back home in Canada).
Like many in the online marketing business, we are fascinated by Google Glass, though mostly because it’s very futuristic and very cool (OR ridiculous, depending on who you ask). Whether or not we’ll someday consider Google Glass users when we’re developing marketing strategies remains to be seen. Remember, there was once a time when we didn’t put any thought into mobile devices like phones and tablets. Maybe Google Glass will catch on and we’ll all be talking to our glasses and taking a picture with just a wink!
Both! In spite of the rash of Google updates and other covert maneuvers, link-building is still necessary for search rankings. Google has made it crystal clear that high quality content is what it wants. But Google is not quite so upfront about links. We do know that quality onsite and offsite content is just part of effective SEO. You still need to get those links. Link building tactics have changed and will continue to change in response to Google updates. Looks like another Google update is coming soon.
Take a look at this Timelapse site, created by Time Inc. and Google. According to Google’s blog: Google worked with the USGS to make an archive of earth imagery available online. Using Google Earth Engine technology, Google sifted through 2,068,467 images to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. Google then worked with the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, recipients of a Google Focused Research Award, to convert these annual Earth images into a seamless, browsable HTML5 animation.
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