Whether you’re brand-new to Internet marketing, or you’ve been selling online for a while now, search engine optimization is the one strategy you can’t AFFORD to ignore!
Earn high rankings in the search engines, and you’ll be rewarded with endless streams of quality FREE traffic heading straight to your website.
But neglect your rankings, and you’ll spend ALL of your time trying to convince even a few visitors to stop by your site (and chances are, they won’t even be interested in what you’re selling when they show up).
Fortunately, optimizing your website …

MARCH 18, 2009
But is it invincible?
According to comScore, YouTube received more than 100 million unique visits in January, making it again the most widely viewed video service in the US.

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The next four most-viewed video sites were Fox Interactive Media properties, Yahoo! sites, Microsoft sites and AOL, followed by the hard-charging Hulu.
YouTube owes much of its growth to the users who generate the majority of content on the site. eMarketer estimates that 9.1% of Internet users, or 18.1 million people, will create user-generated videos in 2009.
Despite this enthusiasm, YouTube has yet …

MARCH 17, 2009
Outlook not so good?

Aside from searching for information, e-mail has long been the most popular activity online. But no more.
 
According to Nielsen Online, more people in the US and other leading digital countries worldwide are using social networks and blogs than e-mail.

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While search and destination sites remain the most popular online activities, social network and blog use exceeded that of e-mail, increasing their reach by 5.4 percentage points.
In addition, time spent on social networks and blogging sites is growing at over three times the rate of overall Internet …

MARCH 11, 2009
Do your click-throughs measure up?
It may not be what you want to hear, but over the course of the year click-through rates vary.
According to a study of more than 10 billion banner inquiries across Europe from ADTECH (not to be confused with ad:tech), the average click-through rate fluctuates between 0.11% and 0.19%. Apparently, users click on display ads more frequently toward the end of the year, during the major online shopping period. The rate then restabilizes in January at 0.12%.
ADTECH found that the size of the …

As marketers begin to better understand how Web site optimization fits into overall campaigns, budget investments in search engine optimization (SEO) will grow at a higher rate each year, compared with other types of search marketing strategies, according to a recent report from eMarketer. 
The report, “Search Marketing Trends: Back to Basics,” suggests that growth will decline for paid search from 15.9% in 2009 to 11.3% in 2013–while SEO growth will jump from 17.7% to 20.3%, respectively.
“Every company is losing some business because of the economy, whether they buy less, or …