Saturday, January 16, 2010

Barrons.com - Google Takes on Godzilla









"Google Takes on Godzilla", good article but Godzilla is Japanese not Chinese.








Click the following to access the sent link:



Barrons.com - Google Takes on Godzilla*

*This article can also be accessed if you copy and paste the entire address below into your web browser.
http://online.barrons.com/article_email/SB126359790921930065-lMyQjAxMTIwNjEzNjUxOTY3Wj.html





















Thursday, January 14, 2010

Happy Holidays from Best Image and NUMBER1EXPERT


from the Business I work for.
NUMBER1EXPERT Top Selling Agent
Insider From Your NUMBER1EXPERT Support Team

Real Estate - Homes - NUMBER1EXPERTS® Sell More!
.
Happy Holidays From Best Image Marketing! Happy Holidays From All Of Us At Best Image Marketing!
We Wish You the Very Best this Holiday Season!
Have a happy and prosperous 2010!

Happy Holidays from ComScore Web Analytics Provider



From: comScore, Inc. [mailto:cmediametrix@comscore.com]
Subject: Happy Holidays from comScore









11950 Democracy Drive, Suite 600, Reston, VA 20190



Epiphany of the State of Search Engine Marketing

This article from 8-15-2007 by Miguel Goforth
It is specific to real estate agents but could be applied to any small business.  Associate your website with a group(s) and pool recourses. In the same way NUMBER1EXPERTs do.

          Epiphany of the State of Search Engine Marketing
  
                             (Or Grokking)

          Search Engine Marketing as we knew it is dead.  Only most people even in the industry don't know it yet.  In the public or the press, search engine marketing as we knew it, is the big new thing.
          The challenge then is to educate clients about what search engine marketing is today.
          The first thing is the name.  It should be something like Internet or Web Marketing, Search Engines being one piece of the pie but no longer if ever the whole pie.
          In other words search engine marketing as we knew it, as a marketing strategy by itself on the internet is no longer a viable business model for the internet.
          It is like when gold was first discovered in say in California.  At first it was easy to find the gold.   As time went on it became harder to find and cost more time and money to find.  New and different methods had to be developed to harvest the gold.  Methods that were used in previous gold rushes and some new methods.
          The development of the internet and search engines as we knew it, is akin to a new gold rush.   Well the gold fields have matured and we can no longer pick the gold off the ground, you have to do more.   That is to say with so many websites it is no longer easy or straight forward to rank well in a search engine for many common relevant keyword phrases.  Why?  Because 100, 200, 300++ other quality websites are also about your subject matter.
          The cost for a local website like a local real estate agent to get to the top of that 100+++ pile and stay there is now to high, as the search engines change how they rank so much, that you need to able to hire someone to do search engine optimization placement for you full time, so they can immediately react to try to keep your placement as the search engines change how they rank, while the local real estate agent is sweating each day their leads have dried up.
          Then one day your search engine expert comes to you with his epiphany and tells you search as we knew it, is dead.  There are just too many relevant sites competing for the same top 10 positions.  You have to use the internet in a new way, just as the gold harvester had to, after the easy gold was gone and the bigger companies had the best gold fields.
          Now you have to build your business on the internet overtime as with opening up any storefront.  You are literally opening up a new office in the virtual world.  As in the non-virtual or bricks and mortar world it takes time to develop the business.
          So how does a local real estate agent site compete against those 330+++ other relevant sites, some of which are much bigger national and regional sites?  You could use Pay Per Click but those bigger players can easily outspend you.   You could develop business relationships with those big players.  Of course that is a lot of work and are they going to be interested in even talking to every small guy or if they do, do they treat you as just one more fish?   What if you could pool your resources with other qualified real estate agents and develop business relationships with those big players as a group which then itself becomes a big player.
          So your group of qualified real estate agents works on business relationships with big players to bring you leads that are not dependent on how your local real estate website ranks in the search engines.   And because you are pooling resources you get more value for your marketing dollar.
          Where might you find such a group?  Number1Experts are just such a group.  With Number1Experts you are a member of a marketing pool.
          So you might ask what about search engine traffic direct to my local website is that really completely dead?  No but it isn't something you can count on, it is just gravy.  But remember it takes time to build a business virtual or otherwise.  There is no magic bullet and if someone is trying to sell you one relative to search engines and/or web marketing steer clear.  As your web presence overall increases this will have a positive effect on search engine placement but it takes months and years to develop, and it is always at the whim of the ever developing search engine ranking or placement technologies, which are striving to work more and more like the human brain.  So there is going to be a lot more changes in search engines for a long time.
          So don't think of search engine marketing, think of Internet or Web Marketing and search engines being a part of that.  When you look at some marketing opportunity on the Internet don't think, how will this help me in search engines, think how will this help me in my overall Internet Marketing.  If your Internet Marketing is only focused on search engine placement for your local website you are in big trouble.

    Miguel Goforth
Senior Search Engine Analyst
NUMBER1EXPERT™
Best Image Marketing
Division of Dominion Enterprises