The results of their yearly Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Survey have just been released by MarketingSherpa with some interesting findings. This year, the SEM field was getting so big that they broke their survey down into two parts, SEO and PPC. This survey report deals with SEO.
In the results of over 2,000 responses from B2B and B2C marketers, the first thing that hit me was only a third of businesses use a formal SEO process. Almost half use what they call ‘informal processes’ and 20% have no SEO plan at all!
Also, two twists in modern search engine marketing are ‘personalized’ search (which means different people get different search results depending on their search history) which screws up the metrics of your SEO program, and the advent of social media results showing up on search engine results pages (SERPS). Continue reading .
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A client asked me a question the other day about competing in a highly competitive market, what she called a “saturated market”. It reminded me of a story I heard while up in Alaska…
Two guys were sitting around a campfire out in the woods when a bear came crashing through the trees. One guy reached out and quickly began putting on his sneakers. The other guy looked at him and said “Are you crazy? You can’t outrun a bear!” The first man responded, “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.”
For a small business to compete in a niche market, you don’t have to be the best ever, you just have to be a little better than your competition. That means studying your competition, copy what they are doing right and adding a little more to top them.
There are some handy tools for monitoring your business competitors to see what they are doing. They are also great for initial market research. Continue reading .
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There’s a new vulnerability in Windows XP concerning parts of the Help and Support system. It was found by a Google researcher who posted the flaw just five days after talking with Microsoft about it. Evidently Microsoft wasn’t addressing the issue fast enough for him, raising a bit of a backlash from the community for not giving Microsoft time to respond.
Whatever the case, the exploit is now in the wild and XP machines are vulnerable to drive-by attacks on evil web sites.
It affects Windows XP’s Help and Support functions. Anything using the HCP protocol (hcp:// URI’s) is subject to unauthorized commands.
The easiest way to fix it is to go to Microsoft’s ‘Fix it’ page. You can fix it and, if you don’t like what happens, unfix it from the same site. Pretty cool.
This can also be manually done by following these simple directions:
- Click Start, and then Run.
- Enter regedit, and click OK.
- Expand HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, and then highlight the HCP key.
- Right-click and Export the ‘Selected Branch’ to be on the safe side.
- Right-click the HCP key, and then click Delete.
I read that it may cause some problems in your Control Panel, but I’ve tried most of the links and everything seems to be working on my XP computer.
[Editor's Note: This vulnerability was fixed in this month's Windows Update (July 13th), so make sure your computer is set to update Windows automatically or open your IE browser and go to Tools/Windows Update to download the security patch].
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I’m kind of old school. When I get a WordPress theme I go through all the hassle of creating and/or adding new graphics, add any Adsense or other ads I might want and THEN mess around with the CSS to get the background, nav bars, colors and fonts right.
If it’s a free WordPress theme then is it new enough to handle widgets, pingbacks and trackbacks? I have to use the trial and error method to find out.
There’s a new breed of WP themes now that is starting to eliminate all of the headaches I’ve experienced for years and I’d like to share one I just discovered called the Socrates Premium WordPress Theme and boy is it a time-saver.
All you do is upload it and everything is done from within WordPress. Here’s just some of the stuff it will do, all with a click of your mouse:
- Built-in header generator with 200 headers (or use your own)
- Built-in background graphics
- Custom nav bars
- Custom colors and fonts
- Multiple layout (sidebar) options
- Affiliate program integration
- HTML rotator
and that’s just the beginning. They also include Sales and Squeeze Page templates and training on how to use the theme. The only drawback I’ve found is that it’s fixed at 960 pixels wide, but that’s is what I recommend to my clients, anyway. They seem to update it regularly so that may be fixed in the future.
A single domain license is $47 and an unlimited domain license is $77, one of the best prices I’ve seen for this type of WordPress theme. Check out the video on it here..
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Here they go again. For the third time recently the U.S. Senate, this time in the form of Senator ??Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is proposing a bill that would grant the President the power to seize control of or even shut down parts of the Internet in the event of a cybersecurity emergency.
Previous attempts by Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) didn’t get too far. But Lieberman’s new attempt has been endorsed by Rockefeller and co-sponsored by Snowe according to a cnet article.
Now there’s bipartisanship for you… A Democrat, Independent and Republican all wanting more power for the government – power over the private parts of Internet. Continue reading .
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What do CEO’s want?
Simplicity
Dexterity
Customer Intimacy
Creativity
IBM has just completed a study of over 1500 CEO’s (free registration required to read) and other decision makers from around the world with special emphasis on a group IBM calls “standouts”.
Simplicity. I don’t need to tell you how fast things are changing these days. Many people are being overwhelmed by information and technology overload.
A cell phone user manual is now 3 or 4 times the size of the phone. What did someone come up with? A simple-to-use cell phone. That’s all it does. It has oversize numbers. It’s cheap. It sells!
The idea is to simplify things for both you and especially – the customer. Split-test an ad containing two different keywords – learn vs. easy - and see which one has a better response. Continue reading .
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