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My first thought on the merger was that the sale of Yahoo would be a great monetary boost to Microsoft. This would be done through the consolidation of their competing PPC services and unique searches as well as other operational areas. That being said…..the biggest obstacle would be the integration of cultures and how to continue to manage competing websites.

Yahoo’s user culture and corporate culture are very different from MSN, and more importantly, anything Yahoo would do in the future would be second to Microsoft’s primary business. This can’t be good for Yahoo users, the Yahoo corporate culture and the search engine industry.

Having said all that, how could this merger affect the marketing of websites on the internet. Well, I think that overall, it has the potential to attack Google right where it hurts, their bread and butter of search engine traffic. The biggest obstacle SEM and SEO experts have had in the past in regard to putting effort forward to rank well in either Yahoo or Google or to focus efforts on their PPC programs has been traffic. Without the traffic, the efforts don’t justify the returns. By combining the search results and PPC programs, there can be a justification of putting forward the effort.

I have always felt and many people would disagree with me, that MSN has the best search engine of the big three. The reason is very simple. It is the newest engine and as a result integrates many of the additional models that exist on the internet. For example, Google heavily favors websites with backlinks. This has been the basis of their model from the beginning and this focus has allowed them to flourish.

Yahoo on the other hand launched their own search engine in 2004 and were able to build a better search engine by not only focusing on backlinks, but also by giving credit to well designed websites. A year later, MSN launched their own search which not only integrated the value of backlinks and the value of properly built websites, but also gave credit to web activity through blogs and other forms of online activity. This is not to say that over time Google has not continued to improve their search results, but because the core of their search is based on backlinks, this continues to drive search results today and has hurt their overall search results in my opinion.

So, if this merger happens and I think that is still a big IF, and Microsoft is able to integrate Yahoo in a way where they can consolidate some areas while at the same time keeping Yahoo independent, this can be a big win and they can create a better platform to compete against Google. Otherwise, Google will continue to be the dominant player in the search industry, and SEO and SEM professionals will continue to focus their efforts on Google with Yahoo and MSN being an after thought.

Clearly this is a bold play by Steve Balmer, but he and Bill Gates have done it before with Explorer. The question remains whether Steve can accomplish this without Bill now that he has partially retired.

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Before I got addicted to the internet, I worked a relatively normal schedule. That included your basic 8-6 job, some nights and an occasional weekend. Now I find myself working 24/7.  My day time is filled with talking to clients, drumming up business, managing small fires here and there etc…. I know that this sounds like the trials and tribulations of any small business, but what I find interesting is that  when I had my first business, even with all the work, there were some built in “down time”.  These downtimes were built around cultural norms. For Example, the Christmas holiday season, summer holidays, national holidays and even at night between 9pm and 9am.

The internet knows no cultural boundaries. If I am celebrating a holiday, someone somewhere else is working. If I am working late, someone is just starting to work somewhere else.  In the internet economy, your business is open all day and every day of the year. More importantly, it is open whether you are working or not working. Now this all seems quite wonderful for those who want to create their own business and their own hours, but the reality is that the marketplace is no longer just your city / town/ state or country, but the whole world. In addition, the workforce available to meet those needs are not just people located in your town, but people all over the world.

What does this all mean? Well, what it means is that to succeed on the internet, you have to specialize and focus. Someone once said that the internet “created a distribution channel to allow niche marketers to create viable businesses.” What I now believe is that the only way for small business to succeed on the internet is to focus on a niche market.

Competition on the internet is very competitive and yet I believe that it will continue to grow at 20%-40% per year for the next 10 years. For those looking to get involved in the internet, now more than ever is the time to establish your presence on the internet.  Whereas the cost to succeed on the internet was relatively inexpensive 5 years ago, it is now 10 times more expensive to achieve the same results and will be 10 times more expensive to those who wait another 5 years.

So my advice is act now, make mistakes, try new things and know that any efforts you put in now will benefit you 5 to 10 years in the future. Good Luck.

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Now many of you have heard me say this before, but SEO for SEO sake is NOT a useful use of your time. Yes, many of the reasons clients use our services is due to our SEO abilities, however it is the integration of our SEO knowledge in your website which differentiates your website from the billions of other websites on the internet. Now, If you are a large company and can afford to invest now to see the returns on your investment in 6 months to 1 year, then that is a different story.

However, small companies in general don’t have the resources to invest monies now without seeing some type of return on your investment now. This is why I have always said that when investing time and money into your website, always have multiple reasons for making the effort. One of those reasons should be the SEO affects you receive down the road, but not the only reason.

Blogs are a perfect example. Most people look at their blog as a way to add cheap content to a custom website which is static. This is not a reason to spend a hours upon hours of your valuable time. Your blog should be your primary online way to communicate to your current, future and past clients in a cost effective manner. If you look as your blog as a communication tool to reach a wide variety of people, then you are going beyond the SEO aspects received by making the effort.

Many of my clients have newsletters they send their clients. I have said on many occasions, make your blog your newsletter. This way you are not duplicating your efforts and in addition your are receiving the SEO benefits as an added bonus. Also many people send out mass emails to clients with new information. Instead, send out your emails with a strong subject line, a 2 or 3 sentence summarizing the information, and then a link to your blog with the full article or information. These are ways to utilize the efforts you are already making and instead of adding additional work, you are using that same effort in a different way to provide more benefits over the long term at the same cost in time and money.

By now you are asking, how does this relate to the title of this blog post. Well, the answer is simple. Most people who are new to blogging see all these other options when they are posting like trackbacks, summary, custom fields, tags, categories etc…. These are the tools which will help maximize the content of your blog in the search engines and therefore maximize your efforts. By taking the time now when you are just getting started to learn about the SEO tools associated with blog posting, you will see a tremendous increase in the results of your efforts. Now, to get started on learning about blogs and how to use the various tools associated with them and how they will benefit your efforts, click on the link below to see what each piece of the blog puzzle means and how by knowing what they do, you will be more efficient and more successful with your efforts all at the same time.

Since we use wordpress blogs in our development, I have linked to the Wordpress Glossary to get you started in your knowledge quest to become the best and most efficient blogger online in your industry.

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We have always outlined our linking strategy as follows:

• First and Foremost, don’t involve yourself in straight linking just to get a link. Pick and choose your links carefully. Follow the following guidelines:(reciprocal linking)
  • Make sure that any page you choose to link to (not website) but page you choose to link to is indexed in the search engines.
  • Make sure that all the links on the page you are linking with are all industry related.
  • Don’t link with a website owner or webmaster you don’t trust.
• Secondly, don’t get your links from one source. Your one way links should come from a variety of sources. These sources may include the following:
  • Posting in online forums that allow signatures
  • Posting appropriate comments in other blogs
  • Listing your website in appropriate industry related directories
  • Writing articles about the industry which you allow other websites to use with a link back to your website in the footer.
  • Get your vendors and clients to link to your website.

If you follow these basic steps, you will find that your website will not only be indexed, but will receive placement in the search engines.

To read the complete article CLICK HERE

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