Category: News & Trends

Okay this is hot and you really should take advantage of it. In certain markets, Google is now showing a map and local listings above the organic search results. That means that you should make sure that you are in Google Maps! This is a similar approach to what Yahoo has taken, but has charged big time for based on metropolitan market. I have one client who paid Yahoo $800 per month to have this type of positioning that Google appears to be giving away free.

Now here is the hot tip, it appears that Google Maps is now also showing reviews for businesses tied to the Google Maps information and the reviews are all coming from a site called Yelp.com. You can click our post title and go there directly to check it out.

It can really work for you when you have a great review about your business from a real customer and now Google is helping you to get business and credibility for free. Wow, that is a big deal — first take advantage of Google Maps and second build your credibility online by pointing satisfied customers to Yelp.com to build your online reputation.

Note: I do not recommend that you do this in a bogus way, do not try to pad your references online; that would be disreputable and Google is very smart, it may come back to haunt you. Best to play it straight up and honest!

I haven’t seen this in any of the professionals forums or even on the MSN adCenter blog, but I was looking at a potential client’s account for management services and his account is on MSN adCenter Beta. Interesting! Of note was the fact that MSN adCenter is moving to a control panel much like Yahoo’s.

Of particular interest to me was the fact that in adCenter Beta, MSN has dropped “Orders”. Now there are only campaigns, ad groups, and ad text just like the Google AdWords model. The interface was much more user friendly and is clearly a new change for MSN which is struggling to resolve some of the “issues” that professionals find with their current pay per click advertising interface.

I am looking forward myself to migrating to this new fresher and hopefully bug-free interface for Microsoft adCenter.

We are all seeing Web 2.0 on the Web and in forums, but what exactly is that and what does it mean. Web 2.0 is just another name for an interactive website. One that is not static in nature, but rather interacts with the user.

But now we see the emergence of “Web 2.0”, a fairly new term that describes an innovative type of website that is built on the participation of its users. Blogs, wikis Podcasts and social networks all fall under the Web 2.0 umbrella.

Huh? Web 2.0 means introducing Buzz Clouds, interactive blogs — wikis, podcasts, RSS news feeds, user participation on your site. Allowing your users to search your site, add content and comments, and in general interact with the information that you have. That is the jist of Web 2.0.

Don’t get tied up on the details, just know that users want more ability to interact. Websites are transitioning from a one way directional interchange of data, you to the user, to a more multi-directional exchange, you to the user, user to you, user to user. A great example is a blog. Comments are left on a post you or another reader can comment and a real exchange happens. Well a small microcosm really. Web 2.0 is on a much broader scale, but a blog, video, news feeds, are all a start to help you transition to this new direction and something fairly easy to implement now.

Want to see the new face of Google Search for 2007. Click our post title to view our February newsletter to get a sneak peak of the new search interface that Google is testing under the name of SearchMash. It will open your eyes to new possibilities.