Legal Internet Marketing Blog

The New Year presents the perfect opportunity for a fresh start. If you haven’t put together resolutions for yourself and your business already, take a moment to envision what you want 2012 to be. After setting goals for your company, one step towards making them a reality is to anticipate what lies ahead in the Internet marketing world so you can stay ahead of your competition. As such, complements to New Year’s resolutions are predictions, and we wouldn’t be an Internet marketing company if we didn’t come up with our own!

SEO Will Continue to Reign
As much of an impact as social media and social networking will continue to have on Internet marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) is the glue that keeps rankings and lead generation together. To ensure that your target audience will be able to easily find your website and content through high search engine rankings, you must make sure that proper SEO has been and will continue to be implemented.

Keep an Eye-out for Twitter Brand Pages
While Twitter brand pages have yet to become available on a wide scale, stay alert for when the chance arrives. Businesses are expected to benefit from these brand pages since they will provide a way for new interactions and different means to engage with followers.

More specifically, Twitter brand pages provide an expanded header image area, an ability to have a “featured Tweet” for an extended period of time on a brand page, and the option of splitting up a brand’s @replies and @mentions.

New Hats for Keyword Research
There is no denying the importance and value of keyword research, but what are the best tools to utilize? As a larger number of businesses are becoming more ambitious when it comes to Internet marketing, new keyword research tools are expected to develop to provide new perspectives on target audiences and search results. And it’s not just about new tools.

How businesses will combine, use, and implement keyword research methods will play a vital role in the outcome of predicting changes in demand, responses to fluctuating market conditions, and providing the right kind of content, products, and services Internet users are searching for.

Make Way for Google +
Not that anyone is underestimating the power of Google, but we must remind readers that Google Places profiles are linked to Google business pages (Google+’s version of Facebook fan pages, to an extent), which means that the blend of social and search will play an importantly groundbreaking role like never before in 2012.

Questions for the Magic 8 Ball?
Here at SLS Consulting, our legal Internet marketing team will be hosting a Tweetup this Friday, December 6 at 10 a.m. PST to discuss predictions for 2012 in more detail as well as share our Internet marketing New Year’s resolutions. To join in on the discussion being held through @LegalBlogs, please include the hashtag #knowSEO in your tweet(s). We look forward to hearing about your predictions and resolutions for 2012!

Sipe & Associates, Inc., d.b.a. SLS Consulting, is proud to announce being ranked within the Top 200 on the Lead411 Technology List for 2011. We are so grateful for this recognition and to all of our clients as we jump from the top 500 from last year to the top 200 this year!

The competitive nature of being given a spot on the Lead411 Technology Top 200 List for 2011 is no joke. Rankings for finalists were based on the highest revenue and growth among all tech businesses that applied. The final rankings reflect the fastest growing tech companies in the United States who stay ahead of the game and utilize the latest trends in the technology industry.

To qualify for a Lead411 ranking, a business has to be privately-held, operate in the U.S., and must have earned over $1 million in the past year. A company’s ranking is calculated based on its two-year percentage of revenue growth from 2008 to 2010. Among other companies included in the Lead411 list, SLS Consulting is recognized for its accomplishments in Internet and Consulting. Other areas of recognition for tech businesses on the Lead411 list include Software, Media, Telecom, Wireless, IT Services, Hardware, and eCommerce.

By providing businesses and employees with awareness of the different ways in which a company can be profitable, the Lead411 Technology List is one way in which the organization offers corporate information, company news, and awards for up-and-coming businesses.

In being selected as a top 200 tech businesses for its achievements as a Legal Internet Marketing consulting group, SLS Consulting is excited for what the future holds!

To learn more about the many achievements of SLS Consulting, please visit http://www.legalinternetmarketing.com/ or call (323) 254-1510 for a free growth assessment of your law firm or business.

For a law firm or any type of business, the Internet can be a treacherous place where your competition may jump at the chance to destroy you. A recent blog post of ours addressed online business reputation ransoming in which moving companies were being given false negative reviews on Google Places by reputation management companies who later contacted them for business. Now, people are not only spamming the Google Places profiles of their local competitors with fake, negative reviews, they are also reporting their competitors’ businesses as CLOSED.

A Search Engine Guide article discusses these recent and upsetting events occurring on Google Places. About 97% of consumers use the Internet to find a local business, which is why the majority of businesses create and manage a Google Places account. If business is that slow that a person needs to falsely report their competitor’s business as closed, then this creates a big problem in an already struggling economy. An even bigger problem, however, is why Google has allowed such deceptive practices to take place. Why aren’t Google Places owners notified through a confirmation email that their business has been reported as closed? Wouldn’t this provide an effective and reasonable way for accounts that reported the business closed to be manually reviewed so they can be banned? Sure, you could say that spammers will always find new ways of slipping through the cracks of the system, but shouldn’t every possible precaution be taken, especially when a businesses’ reputation and profits are on the line? We all know how hard it is to get a good Google Places ranking and the hoops Google puts you through to get it… so why is it so easy to get your listing shut down???

As Google works on making false closure reports more difficult to manifest, businesses and marketing companies should frequently check Google Places listings for false closure reports. Equally important is for Google Places users to keep their heads on straight. Don’t give in to the temptations of false reviews and false closure reporting. This will not benefit you. If everyone starts making false reviews and false closure reports, how will people be able to trust Google Places local listings anymore? If your business can’t be found on the Internet, a free perk Google Places makes possible, your profits will diminish.

The potential threat of Google Places sabotage should not deter you from having a Google Places account and it certainly should not stop you from establishing a presence and authority online. In the end, your ethical practices will outshine the unethical approaches to Internet success. In the meantime, you can still be tough and ethical at the same time by arming yourself with knowledge about these events and how to prevent and solve them. If you back down, then the other side wins. The power of knowledge is your first defense.

Mashable reports that Google unveiled Google+, a social network designed to go head-to-head with Facebook. A very limited test field was rolled out on Tuesday, June 28, and will become available to the entire public at an undisclosed date.

One of the biggest differences between Google+ and Facebook is Circles, in which users are able to sort their friends into different social circles, such as friends, family, co-workers, and more. Users are able to share photos, links, posts, and other content with multiple circles or just one circle. Facebook users are able to limit who can see what, but it is not as easy to manage, nor is it as central of a feature, as it is with Google+. Another significantly different aspect of Google+ is that it has a free, multi-user video chat feature, called Hangouts. Currently Facebook does not have anything similar to this. Within Hangouts, users and their friends are able to search for and watch YouTube videos together as a group. (Google owns YouTube.) All users in the chat are able to search, play, or pause a video.

Another crucial difference between Google+ and Facebook is Sparks, which is essentially a recommendation engine that helps users find interesting content based upon their interests. Sparks is a collection of articles, photos, videos, and other content that is recent and relevant and is grouped by interest, such as “Movies.” Sparks is algorithmic, meaning it relies on information from other products from Google, such as Google Search, in addition to what is being shared by Google +1 buttons as well as within Google+ itself. Facebook users are able to become a fan or “Like” a product, place, etc., but users are not able to fully cultivate their interest. Sparks, in contrast, delivers content from across the web based upon terms a user enters, which are able to be returned to anytime to sort through new content. Users can also add Circles or individuals to an item to share with them. It appears as though Google+ will attempt to become the one-stop destination not only for sharing content, but also for finding it.

With the failure of Google Buzz and Google Wave, the search engine giant has been struggling to effectively battle Facebook. No doubt Google+ will be closely scrutinized once it becomes available to the entire public. While it remains to be seen how successful the new social networking site will be, once again we are reminded of the high value search engines like Google place upon content that is both relevant and interesting, in addition to its appeal to users.

Is your law firm blog/website full of content that is likely to be read and shared by users with their friends? As you can see, it is becoming more and more crucial that websites and blogs have content that is appealing, relevant, and interesting. If you have doubts about the effectiveness of your website or blog’s content, contact SLS Consulting to learn more about legal content development.

Sources: http://mashable.com/2011/06/28/google-plus/; http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/266334/6-Things-Google+-Can-Do-That-Facebook-Can%27t

On March 30, search engine giant Google announced the +1 button, which will soon appear in Google search results next to links. When a user clicks the button for a link, Google defines this action as a “public stamp of approval,” as it recommends the link to all of their Gmail contacts. A user’s name also becomes associated with the link “in search, on ads, and across the web,” according to Google. In order to use the product, a user must have a Google Profile. The addition of this new tool from Google is one reason why having a Google Profile is important.

Aside from the obvious fact that the +1 button is another way for Google to compete head-to-head with Facebook, the company’s official reason for the product is that it will make search results on Google more relevant. Jim Prosser, Google’s representative, said that people typically consult with their friends and other people regarding their decisions, so integrating what users recommend to their contacts is an easy way to make Google search results more useful.

The +1 feature won’t be seen en masse for a few months, but for those who are interested in experimenting with the button right away are able to by visiting http://www.google.com/experimental. For now, only a small percentage of sites and searches will have the +1 button, according to Google. However, merely one day after the announcement of the tool, there were already reports that it had popped up on the web.

At this time, Google says the amount of +1s won’t affect search rankings on its search engine. However, according to Prosser it’s something Google is interested in integrating in some form at some point in the future.

Besides the invaluable fact of showing up in search results, Google has stated it plans to offer publishers a version of the button to allow readers to +1 something without leaving the site, comparable to Facebook’s like button, which is already installed on over 2 million websites. In spite of this similarity, Google’s button will likely have a large amount of appeal, particularly since the company says data from +1s will directly influence its market share dominating search rankings. Additionally, it is without a doubt that the new feature will spell bad news for content farms, as their content is far less likely to be shared by users.

Are you worried about the affect the +1 button may have on your website and its content? There’s never been a better time to invest in improving your law firm’s presence on the Internet, with the +1 button addition and Google’s recent algorithm change, to make sure you are doing the best you can to reach your target audience. Contact the Legal Internet marketing team at SLS Consulting by calling 323-254-1510 today for a free growth assessment.

Sources: http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/03/31/google.plus.one.mashable/index.html?hpt=Sbin, http://mashable.com/2011/03/30/everything-about-google-plus-1/

Recently, Hubspot hosted “The Science of Timing”, a webinar attended by almost 25,000 that discussed research conducted by Dan Zarrella, a social media “scientist” who analyzed thousands of blogs, Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts, and emails to present data regarding the best practices for when and how often these communication tools should be utilized. The following is a brief look at some of the key points that were discussed during the webinar that are beneficial to law firms and other businesses looking to better market themselves online.

1. Should my blog posts be tied to my tweets and Facebook status updates?

   It is highly recommended that you feature your blog posts on both Twitter and Facebook so you can reach the highest number of people possible. However, that said, you need to be cautious about automatically linking your tweets to your Facebook. It’s much easier to flood the walls of the fans of your page than it is to flood their Twitter feed. This is partially due to the fact that Facebook filters users’ wall feeds based upon their preferences, so all updates and shares from friends and Likes aren’t always on their wall. With Twitter, the content of the feed is 100 percent of updates from users followed, and since many users follow hundreds of accounts, it is less likely your tweets will overtake their feed. For example, according to Zarrella’s research, the Facebook business pages that perform the best only post about every other day, so you should be very selective and careful with the pieces you highlight there.

2. Is it possible to saturate your Twitter audience?

   Yes, if you tweet the exact same thing. When tweeting, you can feature the same content but use different ways of promoting it. For example, if you are sharing a recent blog post on Twitter, tweet the link using the title of the post. Later on in the day, tweet about something different from the post, such as key points or an important quote, and again include the link. Make sure you spread out the content you are sharing to attempt to reach as many people as possible, since people access Twitter at different times throughout the day. Be creative and don’t tweet the same thing over and over. You shouldn’t be afraid of tweeting too much – Zarrella found that some of the most followed Twitter accounts tweet over 22 times a day.

3. How do I find the balance between experimenting with timing yet remaining consistent?

   It’s important to experiment with timing (when you share updates on Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc.) in order for you to learn more about your audience. For example, Zarella’s research discovered that men are more likely to read blog posts at night, while blogs are more likely to be commented on over weekends. When are people more likely to read your blog posts, retweet your tweet, or like your Facebook page? Experiment to find out. However, for your audience that is already established, it can be confusing if you begin to experiment when you are sharing content if they are already used to a certain day or time.

While there is no easy solution, experimenting with timing can help you get an idea of when your audience is more likely to read and/or respond to what you are sharing, which can help you learn how to optimize your timing best.

While Zarrella presented many statistics, charts, and graphs based upon his findings, he cautioned webinar attendees to find what works for their business and their niche audience specifically. There are no concrete, fast rules to follow since social media changes constantly, but there are effective practices that can be implemented and regularly reviewed to see what’s working and what isn’t. With hard work and dedication, the results will follow. To find out more about how social networking and blogging can help your law firm get more clients, contact the legal Internet marketing team at SLS Consulting for a free growth assessment! Call 323-254-1510.

Are you wondering why your traffic and website rankings dropped suddenly? Well, aside from the fact that slight shifts in traffic and site rankings occur on a daily, weekly, and even monthly basis, Google recently updated the way it ranks web pages with the Farmer Update.

By changing its algorithm, which seems to have mostly affected lower quality sites, content farms, and even some article directories, Google has made its message loud and clear that high quality sites hold the most search engine strength. Why is this the case? Because these are the websites that actually help people. Search engine users are looking for relevant results for the information and/or help that they need.

So how can you arm your website now to ensure that traffic and rankings don’t plummet the next time Google updates its algorithm? Here are five tips.

1. Nothing’s Set in Stone – The first thing you need to know is that you can’t control what Google does and you certainly can’t fool Google either. And even if you do succeed in fooling Google, such actions usually are short-lived and result in penalties.


2. Be Original – Duplicate or plagiarized content will get you nowhere fast. Google crawls websites looking for the most relevant and updated content. If your website has material that another website has, not only will your rankings and visitors decrease, but your site could be penalized.


3. Provide Something Irresistible – If your website doesn’t provide any valuable, informative, unique, or helpful information, no one is going to stay longer than a few seconds. The most recent Google algorithm update stemmed from user complaints about low quality and irrelevant sites showing up with high search results. That is why, for the most part, these sites no longer have successful results.


4. Fit the Profile – Google is looking for websites that have original, informative content. As we have experienced with our own Legal Internet marketing website and those of our clients, high quality websites that contain in-depth reports, research, thoughtful analysis, and content that is useful to visitors will continue to see their search engine rankings maintain their positions or even jump.


5. Stay True to Yourself – It may seem tempting to follow advice from your neighbor or friend about why you should post content to content farms or include a lot of hidden links on your website, but these tactics will hurt your rankings in the long run. Regurgitating information and over-optimizing may seem like the easy way out, but beware … these things won’t take you anywhere.

To sum it all up, if you write and add quality content to your website, it’s very likely that your high search engine rankings will stick or even increase. Google will update its algorithm again. But the odds that Google will change it to favor low quality sites with duplicate, over-optimized, or irrelevant content are slim to none.

If you think your website contains low quality content, there is no better time than now to change that. Call us today to see how we can help you "turn up the heat" on your search engine rankings.

It’s hard to believe that 2010 is almost over. While some can’t wait for this year to be a thing of the past, others may still be relishing in goals achieved and reflecting on lessons learned. No matter where you stand, in the world of Legal Internet marketing, 2011 should be an exciting year and there is much to look forward to. Here are some predictions for Legal Internet marketing for 2011!

1. Social Media Dominance – Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn will only continue to grow in popularity, become more user-friendly, and advance in what features are offered. If you have to ask yourself what these sites are, then 2011 should be your year of trying out the many benefits provided by various aspects of these social media platforms.

2. Relevant Information Prevails – Make 2011 the year that information that is actually helpful to visitors makes it to your website, blog, and social media accounts. Take pride in your online image and invest some time into either writing for these sites or discussing what your personal goals are with your Legal Internet marketing consultant.

3. Google’s Evolution Will Continue – Many law firms and various other businesses were struck by Google’s new integration of “local” or “places” into search results within traditional organic listings. Be aware that Google will continue to pull back the curtain to reveal even more updates and introduce even more new tools to aid in your Internet marketing endeavors.

4. Emergence of Cost Saving Strategies – With so many free and easily accessible legal directories and online platforms out there, it can be difficult to know which ones are capable of actually helping your online reputation and presence. You don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to be on the first page of search engines. There are options you can explore with your Internet marketing specialist to ensure that an effective and balanced marketing plan is constructed and carried out that won’t cost you a fortune.

5. Time Will Pass By Even Faster – If this last prediction for 2011 evokes any feelings of anxiety, it’s not meant to! Instead, make each day count, and you’ll stay on top of your game. You may not be able to do everything at once, nor will you get everything done that you need to in one day, but as long as you are doing all you can and pushing yourself to accomplish your goals, it will be worth it and you will be successful.

Have a safe and wonderful New Year!

Sipe & Associates, Inc., d.b.a. SLS Consulting, is pleased to announce being ranked in Lead411’s Technology 500 List for 2010. The list was released on Lead411’s blog on December 1 and is comprised of the renowned company’s final rankings of the fastest growing tech businesses in the United States. In offering corporate information, company news and awards for up-and-coming businesses, as well as providing alerts and people data relating to companies throughout the U.S., Lead411 has honored SLS Consulting by recognizing the Legal Internet Marketing firm as a company that stays on top of trends in the technology industry.

Lead411’s CEO Tom Blume states, “We started this list in order to track and recognize the fastest growing tech startups.” The Lead411 Technology 500 list contains privately held companies that obtained at least $1 million in revenue in 2009 within the software, Internet, media, wireless, hardware, telecom, IT services, eCommerce, and consulting industries. According to Lead411, the Technology 500 was created to honor the companies “who are doing it right” in the arenas of products and services, marketing, and employment.

As a relatively small, but respected boutique Legal Internet Marketing consulting group, SLS Consulting is able to provide its clients with the one-on-one attention that they need to achieve online results that last. Each SLS client receives custom websites with unique content and design that reflects their law firm’s personality, conveying an unforgettable message to online visitors. And this is only the beginning of what SLS has to offer.

In being recognized as one of the top 500 fastest growing tech companies, SLS Consulting is honored to be included in Lead411’s list, excited about what the results for 2010 hold, and looking forward to a new year in 2011!

Then it probably is, right? Well, it depends.

If I were to tell you that our legal Internet marketing company can expand your client base and web presence through a visitor-friendly and informative website with SEO to help your firm get solid search engine rankings, you may have your doubts. However, you’d only have to take a peek at our client testimonials to see that SLS Consulting has done this time and time again.

But what about an email offering you a free service from an Internet company you’ve never heard of? This song has a different tune. Some attorneys, and most likely other businesses as well, have been receiving emails and contact form submissions offering a free listing and a meeting to “put a face with a name.” Many of these companies are even more than happy to personally deliver an authorization form directly to your office at a time that is convenient for you. Sounds wonderful, but most of these companies do not actually provide a business with a free listing unless it purchases their SEO services.

When an offer says that something is “free” and that there is “no catch”, it may not be that easy to refuse. However, it is probably a good idea to take a step back and evaluate whether what is being promised will actually be provided at no cost.

This is not to say that these companies do not provide effective services to their clients. The question though, is why a company would offer something free of charge that a business will end up paying for anyway. Do you really want a company in charge of your online brand and marketing to operate under false pretenses?

While you cannot always filter who sends you emails, these offers can be an eye-opening look into the different types of solicitations that often find a way through the system.

If you have a solid legal website, there is a good chance that several Internet marketing and SEO companies wish you were their client. And they will try to rope you in. In an effort to sweep you off your feet, you may have received messages similar to the one below:

Hi,

Would it be OK if I send you my company's pricing & trial proposal? I work with other attorneys and have nearly tripled their website traffic and helped them gain new business mainly through top Google positioning.

Let me know. Thanks.

Another interesting tactic to gain more clients that seems as though it would rarely, if ever, be successful, is to submit a Contact Form on a website or sending an email stating the following:

When I Googled "lawyer -- --" your website is on page 39.

If you are wondering why your online sales and enquiries are below expectations, this is almost certainly the reason.

How often do you go past page 1 of Google? You’re probably like 93% of the population who don’t bother looking past the first page. Being on page 1 is like having a store on 5th Avenue or Rodeo Drive; the easier your site is to find, the more traffic and sales you’ll get from the 600 million people who use Google, Yahoo and Bing every day.

Why choose us to rank you above your competitors?

• Guaranteed page 1 rankings, or we work for FREE


• Proven track record of ranking sites to page 1


• The lowest rates on the market – and NO setup fees

Simply reply “Rank Me!” to this email for a FREE consultation.

One point to highlight regarding the above message is that the term that the company entered into Google and found for the attorney’s website on the 39th page, is not even close to a term that the attorney’s site is meant to rank highly for. The message does not even contain helpful information relevant to their practice.

These messages are so impersonal and inaccurate because the individuals who are sending them submit so many that they don’t even review them to make sure the information is correct! Another interesting factor of these SPAM offers is that some companies and individuals will even “follow-up” with you:

Continue reading "Shoo Fly, Don't Bother Me: Sifting through SPAM Marketing Offers" »

Sipe & Associates, Inc., dba SLS Consulting, is proud to announce being selected for the second consecutive year for the 2010 Best of South Pasadena Award in the Internet Marketing & SEO Service category by the U.S. Commerce Association (USCA). As a well-known and established boutique legal marketing consulting group, Sipe & Associates, Inc. continues to provide personable and rapid client development.

The USCA "Best of Local Business" Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. U.S. Commerce Association (USCA) is a New York City based organization that recognizes the best of local businesses in their community. Each year, the USCA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Nationwide, only 1 in 70 (1.4%) 2010 Award recipients qualified as two-time Award Winners. Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2010 USCA Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USCA and data provided by third parties.

To learn more about how Sipe & Associates, Inc. is different and how we can help your business grow, please visit our website at http://www.legalinternetmarketing.com/ or call 1-323-254-1510.

SLS Consulting, an established and respected boutique legal internet marketing consulting group located in South Pasadena, California, is honored to be celebrating 10 years in business. To mark this very special occasion, SLS Consulting is proud to announce the launch of its brand new website, which can be viewed at: http://www.legalinternetmarketing.com.

The team of marketing professionals at SLS Consulting that President and founder of the company, Susan L. Sipe, has trained and assembled, are pioneers in the internet marketing field. With Susan’s lead, their efforts have helped countless firms build personalized strategic marketing plans aimed at increasing client development. SLS’s unique approach to internet marketing includes offering exclusivity to our valued clients based on their geographic location and area of expertise.

With the launch of its brand new website at: http://www.legalinternetmarketing.com, SLS Consulting offers legal professionals a new hub for exploring all of the custom services that their firm has to offer. Whether they are looking for a tutorial on the A-B-C’s of search engine marketing, an example of SLS’s certified results in search engine placement, or testimonials from attorneys who have benefited from partnering with SLS; the new website is an exciting addition to SLS’s impressive stable of assets.

Continue reading "SLS Consulting Legal Internet Marketing Firm Celebrates 10 Years In Business With Launch Of New Website" »

People with an insider’s knowledge of Microsoft say that the company will make an announcement soon that Facebook posts will appear in Bing’s search results in the near future. Microsoft has said that posts from Twitter users have already been integrated into its new search engine’s search results. It’s also possible that posts from other social media sites will also be included in the future.

The president of Microsoft’s online services division, Qi Lu, was expected to make the announcement about the integrated search results at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. The senior vice president for Microsoft’s online audience business group, Yusuf Mehdi, is expected to conduct a demonstration of the new capabilities of the Bing search engine.

Microsoft’s deal with Twitter, which is expected to be nonexclusive, has reportedly been included in the company plans for many weeks. Microsoft engineers had already included Twitter posts into Bing in anticipation of the announcement. The terms of Microsoft’s deal are not expected to be disclosed, but a person inside the deal who wished to remain anonymous said that negotiations included a payment from Microsoft to Twitter.

Continue reading "Microsoft's Bing Browser Integrates Twitter and Facebook Posts in Search Results" »

Many Internet users don’t know that some Internet service providers allow certain sites to load faster than others do. However, the debate over “network neutrality” is gathering momentum again in Washington and e-commerce sites may finally get to compete on a level playing field if legislation is passed to make access to all websites equal. ISPs and Arizona Senator John McCain lead the opposition to this legislation. Whether the debate will favor e-retailers is still very much in doubt.

The Federal Communications Commission recently proposed new rules that would prevent giant Internet service providers, such as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and others, from allowing the transmittal of web traffic of some websites at faster speeds than others allow. These ISPs claim that they should be able to charge more to send some traffic at higher speeds since streaming content for television shows and videos are chewing up large chunks of bandwidth and straining network capacity.

Many Internet companies and retailers favor network neutrality, arguing that allowing Internet users equal access to all online content promotes innovation and growth of the web, especially smaller companies that can’t afford to pay more for faster transmission.

Continue reading "Online Retailers Wish for Online "Network Neutrality" and May Get It" »

After suffering setbacks due to the recession, Internet advertising appears to be recovering well ahead of predictions. While advertising in traditional media like newspapers and magazines continues to founder, resulting in layoffs and pay cuts, advertising online seems to be gathering steam again. Kent State professor and former media analyst Lauren Rich Fine recently said that advertising in traditional media, classified sections in newspapers in particular, will never recover to pre-recession levels.

This forecast is in sharp contrast to the growing number of advertisers steadily increasing their online advertising budgets where more of their target audience spends their free time. Further worsening conditions for older media outlets, advertising online is less expensive, and an online advertiser’s return on investment is much easier to measure and track. Even companies that have longstanding advertising relationships with television networks and publishers are realizing that they need a strong marketing presence on the Internet, too.

"You can draw a straight line from the time when people hear an ad on the radio or television to when they search for that company on the Internet," said David Karnstedt, chief executive of Efficient Frontier, which helps manage ad campaigns on search engines.

Continue reading "Internet Advertising Regaining Momentum" »

An article published recently in the Los Angeles Times reports that Yahoo, parent company of venerable website hosting giant GeoCities, is closing down the site that allowed people to create their own pages a decade ago. Then GeoCities sites created by users ranked well in search results and were a social networking hub of sorts for hundreds of thousands of users. Though rudimentary and generally unsophisticated, these pages allowed users to create fan sites, talk about their hobbies, share their political views and a myriad of other topics. They could create pages at no cost, take advantage of a modest amount of storage for images and documents and stake out their own little corner of the Internet when there weren’t many options to do so.

Yahoo was scheduled to pull the plug on the domain and millions of pages on October 25, 2009, and one of the most common domains in the young history of the Internet was expected to cease to exist except in fond memory. In early 2009, although GeoCities stopped accepting applications, current users were allowed to update their pages and save their sites to their hard drives. Compared to peak traffic and users in the late 90s, comparatively few users remained. Yahoo is urging those remaining to transfer their accounts and pages to Yahoo’s web hosting service for $5 a month.

Continue reading "Yahoo Closes GeoCities Site" »

Managers and employees at Internet payment giant PayPal envision a future in which cash is an obsolete form of currency. We will order drinks through a touch screen at a bar and buy movie tickets by touching a movie poster on the side of a building. In PayPal’s forward-thinking future, software developers working for other companies will be able to create these alternative ways of purchasing the products we want by using PayPal’s technology. These visions of our possible future got a lot closer when PayPal announced that they would open their platform on November 3 to developers who want to build payment applications.

While innovations in many other industries have changed the way we live, work and play, there has been significantly less innovation in new and alternative means of making online payments. PayPal President Scott Thompson said as much recently at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. He said that the industry has been resistant to change, but legitimate concerns about fraud and security have been the largest impediments to innovation in the field. He also said that payments are a highly regulated business and require a great deal of cooperation and coordination between senders and receivers.

Still, “there’s a clear sign in the market that people want something better than they have today,” Mr. Thompson said. “Cash and checks are dying a slow death.”

PayPal, an integral part of Internet auction giant eBay, has primarily been driving the growth of the popular auction site. Now, the company is keenly interested in becoming the way that people pay for everything online, on their cell phones and in the course of their daily lives. Mr. Thompson said that the company has been working with software developers at big hardware and software companies, start-ups, mobile telecommunication device manufacturers and other companies. “Payment innovation needs to move from the hands of a few big entities to the hands of many,” he said.

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What started only two years ago as a messaging service with few bells and whistles has evolved into a company with worldwide recognition, millions of Tweeters and the fans who read their tweets. Twitter founders, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, had the business savvy to outsource ideas on how to grow and improve their service to the people who use it on a daily and hourly basis. The company monitors how users use the service and which ideas become popular. Then company engineers transform these ideas into features.

The company has announced that two new features will be rolled out sometime in the next several weeks called Lists and Retweets from users’ ideas.

“Twitter’s smart enough—or lucky enough—to say, ‘Gee, let’s not try to compete with our users in designing this stuff, let’s outsource design to them,’ ” said Eric von Hippel, head of the innovation and entrepreneurship group at the Sloan School of Management at MIT and author of the book “Democratizing Innovation.”

Professor von Hippel said that economists have thought that the people making products and running the companies are natural sources for new ideas and innovations. However, technology companies have turned that model upside-down successfully by allowing others to innovate for them. This works primarily because the Internet lets people around the world share ideas in real time and software allows users to design new products inexpensively. A good example of this is photo-sharing giant Flickr that started out as a small part of a game. When Flickr founders discovered that the photo-sharing aspect was more popular than the game, they shed the game and focused on building Flickr.

This shift favors young start-up companies as older companies tend to rely on proven ideas and techniques, and the structures of their companies may discourage outside-the-box thinking intentionally or unintentionally. Nevertheless, that may be changing somewhat as older companies now try to emulate the methods of new companies after watching how new companies grow to success. One good example is Ford Motor Company—it noticed that users were modifying the voice-activated entertainment and GPS system, Sync, and so invited college students to create new features for the system.

Continue reading "Twitter Evolves and Grows Successful by Listening to Customers" »

Branding consultancy giant Interbrand released its 2009 list of the best 100 global brands recently. Sysomos, a social media monitoring and analytics firm, looked at Interbrand’s data from the perspective of the top 20 brands’ social media presence on blogs, forums and news sites. This led to some intriguing differences in positioning. For example, Google, which placed seventh on the Top 100 Brands list, ranked first in social media mentions. Coca-Cola, the top brand on the Interbrand list, slipped to eleventh on the Sysomos list.

The Interbrand list put Coca-Cola, IBM and Microsoft as the top three in their list, while Sysomos’ top three included Google, Apple and Microsoft. Sysomos found that the fastest-growing brand this fall was Gillette from a social media standpoint. Sysomos determined that most of the mentions that drove the results for Gillette arose from the marketing campaign for its new Fusion razors. Curiously, 13 of Sysomos’ top 20 brands saw their social media mentions drop over the last two months with BMW down 31%, Honda -25%, and Toyota -24% as the steepest declines. Google registered a 13.45 drop for the same period.

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Not so long ago, small business owners had to be very selective about their advertising with their limited marketing budgets. Google AdWords and Internet marketing have leveled the playing field for small businesses substantially. However, unless owners or their Internet marketing expert plan their AdWords campaign carefully, they can quickly find themselves spending thousands of dollars with little return on investment.

First, determine if a Google AdWords campaign is the right choice for your business. For example, if your company produces a new product with very little name recognition, an AdWords campaign centered on a keyphrase like “organic turkey pastrami” might result in very inexpensive clicks, but little traffic to your site.

Next, establish an affordable budget and stick to it. Regardless how competitive your target keywords and keyphrases might be, unless you set a daily and monthly budget and stick to it, you’re setting yourself up to pay an expensive tab for pay-per-click. Instead of focusing on the quantity of clicks on your ad, concern yourself with the quality of those clicks.

Third, consider modifying your selected keywords and phrases with the names of nearby cities or your county. Also, bear in mind that AdWords will let you select a defined geo-specific area where your ads will reach local customers. If your snow plowing business is in Manchester, New Hampshire and you’re trying to attract qualified traffic with a PPC campaign for “snow removal,” it doesn’t do you much good if a user eighty miles away sees your ad. Select Manchester snow removal, Bedford, NH snow plowing services or another nearby community.

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The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is expecting that businesses will expand their mobile marketing budgets by up to 26 percent in the coming year, despite evidence that suggests that businesses will be spending slightly less on marketing this year overall. While mobile marketing is still quite small compared to the reach, relevance and revenue generated by Internet marketing, as more and more users use their personal communication devices to browse the Web, the effectiveness and market share of mobile marketing is expected to rise in the foreseeable future.

While mobile marketing currently represents only 1.8 percent of total marketing budgets, the MMA expects that the total spending on mobile marketing will climb from $1.7 billion to $2.16 billion in 2010. Approximately half of the brands and agencies the MMA polled recently said that they were experimenting with at least one type of mobile marketing, with SMS text campaigns the most popular choice, followed by mobile Web sites and mobile email marketing, respectively.

Most often, marketers are integrating their mobile marketing efforts with the Internet as statistics suggest that mobile Internet access increased 36 percent in the United States over the last year. Further, the research indicated that over 18 million Americans currently have mobile Internet access, and 54 million people worldwide enjoy mobile Internet access. Although mobile marketing has steadily gained market share over the last several years, the research also found that slow connections, spotty network connectivity and extra fees are still the principal barriers to entice mobile users online.

Industry experts believe that mobile Internet marketing has been and continues to be effective because it reaches consumers when they are shopping, running errands and making purchasing decisions away from their home. A research study conducted by Universal McCann on smartphone usage patterns found that more than one-third of smartphone users described as “high-use” respond to mobile advertisements. The study found that:

• 53 percent of smartphone users click on mobile advertising


• 35 percent request more information or a coupon


• 24 percent make purchases through their handsets


• 82 percent said that they use mobile devices while at work


• 81 percent said that they used their mobile devices while shopping

Continue reading "Mobile Marketing Budgets Expected to Climb 26% This Year" »