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Tag: Google

  • Yahoo Market Share Rises after Mozilla Deal!

    Yahoo had got into an exclusive agreement with Mozilla in November 2014. As per this deal, Yahoo became the default search engine for Mozilla PC and mobile browsers. This was a “strategic five-year partnership” and as part of the deal, Yahoo started offering enhanced search experiences. Yahoo featured a clear, modern and immersive design with inputs from the Mozilla team.

    yahoo_market_share_rise

    Source

    This deal seems to have paid Yahoo rich dividends. This is clearly evident in the latest comScore released for US desktop search engine rankings. As per this data, Yahoo has seen an increase of 1.6% in US desktop search market for the month of December. This is the first month since the five year partnership with Mozilla came into effect. Unsurprisingly this comes at the cost of Google which saw a decline of 1.6% of its market share. Any rise of more than 1% is significant for Yahoo, considering the vice-like grip that the numero uno search engine Google has on the US online search market. This is Yahoo’s highest market share since 2009 for the United States.

    How do you view Yahoo’s ascent in the online search market share!

    Contact us for enhanced search engine optimization of your website now!

  • Google Maps, Yelp & Local SEO Insights

    Start the New Year with a new search engine marketing strategy that looks beyond your business website. If you think local SEO, Google Maps and directory sites like Yelp can push you to the top of search engine listings then go for it.

    The July 2014 Google Penguin algorithm update, provides greater relevance to local maps and directory services like Yelp. This way you get useful, relevant and accurate local search results that are tied more closely to traditional web search ranking signals. That means in many cases Local Maps and Yelp listings now rank above the regular business website listing.

    Check out this Google screenshot, the top results for the search query ‘bakery phoenix’.

    serach_engine_optimization_2015

    As you can see the top three results are Google map listings. And there are three more organic listings before you see the actual local business website. Thus, it is imperative that you pay attention to these listings on a regular basis and optimize your presence on Google Maps and directory sites.

    These are the steps you need to follow to optimize your business website:

    • Set up a Google My Business account

    By creating and verifying your local business with Google My Business, you get your business listed on Google for free. All your business information will be shown on Google Maps, on the search engine results page, and in Google+. Your customers will be able to post reviews. And, as a Google My Business account holder, you will be able to reply to reviews posted on Google+ directly from your dashboard.

    You’ll find that under Yelp for Business Owners. And if there are no matches, simply add your business to Yelp. You can get your Yelp business pages to rank on search engines just like your website. Google’s Pigeon algorithm is now paying close attention to local SEO. So users searching for facts on local businesses can now easily find Yelp reviews.

    • Optimize Your Listings

    Once your business is listed and your contact information verified, optimize your business information. Adding photos, contact business information, website URL, and such other information goes a long way to optimize. Your business can also offer good deals and you can respond to reviews more often.

    • Online Customer engagement

    When reviews appear, responding to them shows all your customers that you care. It’s how you build trust. Yelp allows businesses to respond to user reviews either publically or privately. But Yelp frowns on soliciting reviews. Also, not all reviews will be good. But if you respond and work toward a solution in an amicable way, 40% of negative reviews turn positive. Whether good or bad, be upbeat when you engage and reply.

    Making Google My Business part of your SEO strategy for 2015 and getting your business listed on Google Maps and Yelp and the like will align you with prospective customers and keep you ahead of competition on the digital playing field. But keep in mind that this is not a onetime effort. It’s more of a continuing process that you need to build in to your search engine marketing strategy for 2015 and beyond.

    Contact us to deploy Local SEO for your business website now!

  • ‘Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web’ Shuttered

    Yahoo Directory that began service under the name ‘Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web’, a brainchild of the co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo, has finally shut shop. This guide was a directory of websites that were listed under various headings which started way back in 1994. The way the websites were arranged here was in the form of a hierarchy rather than a searchable index of pages, unlike the prevalent norm today. It was an influential directory then, long before search engines were the de facto gateway to the Internet. Back in the day this directory was what people perused before browsing the Internet for information that they wanted.

    But there is no need for such a directory now as search engines can give you information on everything residing on the Internet with the right set of keywords, in a fraction of a second. But still the Yahoo Directory holds an emotional value to some people who want to reminisce of an era when search engines were still part of science fiction.

    yahoo-directory

    Image shows the original Yahoo Directory way back in 1995!

    Unfortunately, the advertisers serving ads on this nearly 20 year old platform will now have to find a new platform to deliver ads. Yahoo has shut down more than 60 services in the last two years and this  is a part of a giant restructuring program at the company. Due to intense competition from the likes of Google, et al, Yahoo has been steadily losing its edge.

    Under the charismatic CEO Marissa Meyer, Yahoo is looking for a mobile product strategy, all the way. All the products that don’t fall in line with this new company goal are ruthlessly terminated. This gives the company more resources to focus on cutting-edge technologies of tomorrow. Thus the Yahoo Directory has got the short end of the stick, in an era where tablets and smart phones rule the roost.

    Today it is unlike 1994 when the Internet was a novelty and a website directory was a beacon of respite for people trying to get aboard this new information super highway a.k.a the Internet! Fast-forward two decades and people clearly have no time for something like Yahoo Directory, when Internet is ubiquitous and inextricably associated with all things business and personal. Today time is a luxury that people just can’t afford to waste perusing a directory of websites on the Internet. Thus was written the epitaph of Yahoo Directory!

    So how do you view this decision of Yahoo to shutter its Directory services! Do let us have your views on it!

    Contact us for your website’s improved visibility on Search Engines now!

  • Google Launches “Store Visits”

    It’s an exciting time to be a digital marketer. You never know what’s in store for you in the digital world as you are in for a surprise the every other day. Google has just come up with a very pragmatic way to measure the effectiveness of your AdWords campaigns. Going forward it will try and link you online marketing campaigns to your offline sales!

    Since the last few years tablet and smart phone usage has proliferated quite sensationally around the world. People are using it more and more to visit ecommerce sites on the go. Due to the mobile form factor , the Internet user’s location can be determined easily and this is the basis for Google’s ‘Store Visit’ to see the light of the day.

    But there are privacy concerns as well. Google which had previously been embroiled in litigation regarding privacy now wants to steer clear of any such issues, with the launch of this new feature. It has reassured users that their data or location details will never be revealed to the advertisers.

    A New Era for Digital Marketers

    Even in this day and age of digital marketing, the truth is that brick and mortar stores have not seen much of a dent in their sales. With Google’s ‘Store Visit’ all those ecommerce players who have a physical store can now rejoice. Using  a customer’s location, the store’s AdWords campaign can now be mapped to actual footfalls in the physical store. This is one metrics with the highest efficacy to determine the true return on investment of your digital campaign and this has got the digital marketers quite excited.

    Imagine you are marketing online for client’s hotel booking using the Google AdWords program. This ‘Store Visits’ tool gives you a direct way to gauge the impact of your online advertising campaign. Your customer’s location will be tracked by Google and if the same customer comes to your client’s hotel and books a room then you can rest assured that your advertising has really paid off.

    This will definitely make more marketers to tread the digital path. Now you can not only drive sales to your offline business store front but you can measure the effectiveness of your digital marketing campaign in a tangible way too!

    Will you be registering for the Google ‘Store Visits’ for you business!

    Do let us know!

    Contact us now for highly effective digital marketing campaigns offering tangible results!

  • Google Launches Hindi Advertising!

    The search engine biggie Google has woken up to the potential of consumers speaking in the vernacular Indian language, residing mostly in the northern part of the country. Google has just launched ads in Hindi to cater to over half a billion people who speak the Hindi language fluently. This will help global advertisers to connect with this market that was hitherto not possible online. Now this is a very big move for Google and also to the tens of hundreds of brands and companies that will partner with Google for this particular program.

    google-hindi-ad

    If you see the above online newspaper wherein the content is in Hindi but all the advertisements are in English! Now you don’t need a rocket scientist to tell you that the click through rate of such an ad is abysmal when compared to the same ads served on an English daily. So Google had to change its tack. It adapted, improvised and overcame the problem of ads not resonating with readers caused due to a language barrier and came up with a solution that is making it more India-centric.

    Now onwards, AdWords advertisers can effectively build campaigns on the Google Display Network using text, image, video, rich text, et al. As part of this new development, Google has also introduced Voice Search in Hindi and an exclusive website to find out the best available online Hindi content across websites, videos, apps, blogs, et al, that has been aptly named hindiweb.com.

    Google had just some time back launched the Indian Language Internet Alliance (ILIA) that is assigned with the task of promoting Indic-language online. Google is aiming to reach out to over 300 million online users speaking Hindi by 2017 via this ILIA master stroke!

    The adoption of Internet in India until now was mainly being unleashed in the international business language, English. Of late companies are seeing the potential of advertising in Hindi as a majority of this demographics does not speak English, anyway. This was basically an opportunity squandered online and for a brand like Google this was unacceptable. Though Google search is available in a variety of Indian languages, serving advertising in an Indian language is a first for Google too!

    So what do you think about this new Google development?

    Post your comments below!

    Contact us now for all round digital marketing.

  • Pin a Post on Your Google+ Page/Profile

    Google has added a new feature wherein you now have the option to Pin your favorite Post on your Profile or Page, as the case may be. This is of considerable significance since you can now display your most important Post to all your viewers. This Pinned Post will be available at the top of your content. This post could be your recent activity or an event that you are hosting that needs to be highlighted constantly.

    This Google+ feature mandates you to Pin only those Posts that are Public. This can be useful to businesses as they can now highlight their most important product launch or any new services rendered at the top of their Page.

    To Pin your Post to your Page just click on the downward facing arrow on the top-right of your Post and you can Pin only one Post at a time and it will be marked with the picture of a Pin on the top-right corner for easy identification as shown below:

    google+_pin

    google+

    Do let us know what you think of this new additional feature on Google+.Contact us now for all round visibility for your campaigns across the digital spectrum!

     

  • Make Your Website Mobile-friendly Now

    Today more and more people are using the smart phone as the primary device for browsing the web closely followed by the tablet computer. Now what does this tell you about the way your website should be designed to cater to this group of burgeoning users? Having a website that just caters to the desktop users is so twentieth century approach. Give it a thought!

    If you still think that you can make do with a desktop-only optimized site then you will be relegated to digital oblivion in no time. Google has come up with a new set of rules that will judge your site’s suitability for the mobile platform. It’s not just Google but every search engine out there that wants you to optimize your site for the mobile browsers of today.

    If you do not know whether your site is mobile optimized then it is high time you take the Google test now in order to demystify the ambiguity revolving around your site’s suitability for mobile users. There is an exclusive set of rules that you need to adhere to in order for your site to be certified as mobile-friendly. They are as follows:

    • Use only those technologies that are supported on the mobile platform (unlike Flash, et al.)
    • Your text should be readable without zooming or squinting the eye
    • Justify your text to the mobile screen so that there isn’t any horizontal scrolling needed
    • Don’t clutter your links in such a way that tapping on one is humanly impossible

    Peruse the Google Webmasters Mobile Guide that will take you on a step by step process of creating mobile-friendly sites. Read the mobile usability report here that highlights various issues related to the efficacy of your entire site. If your site is created using third-party software like WordPress or Joomla, then there is a how-to guide in order to assist you to migrate to a mobile-friendly template.

    In the not so distant future Google might make the mobile-friendly experience a critical criterion for ranking on the search engine results page. So what are you waiting for?

    Get in touch with us now to stay ahead of the curve!

  • How To Write A Killer Ad Copy and much more…| Best of the Week

    This week’s hot news, events and videos from the online marketing and social media world.
    How to Improve your Digital Marketing ROI Using Big Data
    From the Position² Blog This Week:
    How to Write a Killer Ad Copy That Actually Sells
    Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is an effective way to jumpstart sales online. You can achieve hitherto unheard levels of targeting via this avenue with a perfect ad copy. Learn how to write an ad copy that rakes in profits in spades.
    Top Stories this Week: Social Media
    Top Stories this Week: SEO, PPC and Digital Media
    Best of Week Video Best of the Week Video
    Watch this video anchored by Tim Schmoyer that elucidates how to make your B2B marketing videos perform their best.
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    		 Know more about Enterprise Visibilty Accelerator(EVA)
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  • Social Media for Enterprise [Infographic]

    Today if your brand is not present on social networking sites you are unwittingly losing out to your competition. Companies around the world are investing heavily in social media marketing in order to ensure favorable customer engagement. Here’s a quick primer of what the social media world looks like in terms of enterprise participation. This might just spur you to take the plunge and actively incorporate an integrated social media strategy backed by real-time analytics, to power your digital marketing campaigns.

    Social Media for Enterprise Infographic

  • AdWords Targets Users Making In-app Purchases

    App marketers can now target users who have purchased a particular app or made an in-app purchase through the Google Play Store. They can do this by targeting AdWords for the Google AdMob ad network. Thus the marketers can now show their ads to people who are more likely to buy their app or an offering within their app. These ads are basically display ads served within the Android apps. This is a new feature from Google wherein ads will be served to users based on their previous interaction with an app. It offers better ROI to digital marketers and it also benefits the users since they will be offered products or services which makes sense to them.

    Consider a user who has bought Dropbox cloud data storage. Now this user is a very good target customer for the Amazon Cloud Storage S3 (Simple Storage Service). So this new AdWords targeting lets you serve Amazon S3 ads to anybody who has subscribed to the Dropbox Cloud Storage service. That way Amazon has a higher click-through rate at a lower ad budget.

    Using Google AdWords to serve specific targeted users will definitely send you lesser leads but the chances of your leads getting converted to sales is higher since you have qualified leads now.

    Is this new feature from Google worth your attention? Do let us know.