This from Phil Leahy

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I noticed last night that Google’s visible page rank had disappeared for several tools I use. I looked around a little bit but could not find any tool that was working. I think the SEO community has been looking towards this for quite some time, as people have put far too much emphasis on Google’s visible page rank to the point where an entire economy (Text Link Industry) has been developed around a websites Page Rank and the associated value you can extract from selling links.

I think the guys from Majestic SEO and SEOMoz are both quite pleased to see this change, as they both have built into their link spider the ability to score the link value of a website based upon somewhat similar characteristics to that of Google’s Page rank.

I guess we will see how this all plays out over the coming days, weeks, months or years. I think the removal of visible page rank has been long over due.

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What does our future look like?

The CEO of Cisco offered up a motivating entertaining keynote, with a focus on embracing change.  We live for change here, you cannot survive in internet marketing without embracing and learning new methods every month, so you’d think his chat would be a snore.  Still his presentation got me thinking about the assumptions we make, and how to reach beyond what we know is happening today and anticipate what is going to happen tomorrow.  He shared a fantastic interview from 1964 by the author of 2001, Arthur C. Clark, with his predictions for the future.  He said maybe the world would not exist (meaning we would live virtually.  That we would be able to work from anywhere, even Tahiti or Bali. Imagine that!   So what is our future going to look like in 20 years? Visualize it and fit your business into it .  Is video going to be huge? Yes.  Is mobile taking over? Yes.  Be ready for that.

Social Media takeaway from ITS 2011

The social media panel gave a basic overview, but some productive takeaways are about using Linked In more, especially for a B2B business. People tend to discuss social media as Twitter and Facebook, but Linked In is a tremendous resource for reaching businesses and often overlooked. It’s not as important for all business models, but spend a few minutes evaluating if this is a missed opportunity for you.

• Have all employees update their profiles.
• Set up your company page.
• Regularly update status, even just to share a new blog post.
• Join groups and PARTICIPATE in them.
• Connect Linked In with your Slideshare account if you have one.
• Participate in Linked In Answers.

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How to fix this? Go to Account-Account Settings – Click Security on the left top corner – click Edit next to Secure Browsing, Check box, click Save. Facebook has the default setting to a non-secure setting; needless to say this non-secure setting provides benefits to Facebook, not to its users.

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Check this out:

I think this is a GREAT move by Google, as in most cases it will eliminate people from marketing themselves around someone else’s brand. Clearly will help provide someone looking for a particular brand a better user experience.

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We also included a holiday in Bali Indonesia which was a lovely choice of our Sales Director Phil Leahy. We had a great time. Upon arrival at a very popular restaurant/bar called Ku De Ta we discovered a painting.

Google Knows

So even in third world countries like Indonesia, everyone knows that Google knows what you did last summer. I really thought man, even in Bali, Indonesia I cannot get away from Google!

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It would be really interesting if Google started providing Page Rank Updates monthly?

I think generally people have become somewhat disenchanted with Google Page Rank, and there are so many more reliable ways to determine the overall value of a website these days, but many people hang their hat on what their Page Rank is….

Well lets see what the BIG G has in store for all of us.

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You can check your page rank using our Page Rank Tool.

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Google’s +1 (pronounced: plus one) button has the potential to add another billion to the coffers of Google. Google is notorious for failures but when they hit the ball it’s like Babe Ruth déjà vu. The +1 button is very similar in concept to Facebook’s “Like” button. However, there are many subtle differences that make the +1 something to pay attention to.

Facebook’s Like button encourages user’s to interact and share something with a group of selected “friends.” The power of the Like button is that people are more likely to act upon recommendations from people that they know vs. strangers. Like has also become popular as a quick and easy public rating system for websites, blogs and everything else on the web. The more likes and tweets your page has, the greater likelihood you have of going viral. While viral is nice, these spurts of publicity have a tendency to burn out pretty quickly just like the Flu. The Achilles heal of the Like button is that the Like carries with it only a limited duration of exposure either on a viewer’s wall or on a user’s News Feeds. Very quickly, the valuable personalized Likes are buried and whatever positive affects the Likes generated, dies.

Google’s +1 has the potential to overtake the Like button because of two positive advantages it has over Facebook’s little thumb. The first advantage is duration and the second is market penetration.

Google’s +1 doesn’t rely on a display platform like Facebook to be socially relevant to a user. Rather, +1s are displayed and integrated into Google search. Anytime a Google user is logged in and using Google search he/she is able to see the +1s from their friends along with their search results. Moreover, this feature extends to paid ads as well. Due to the contextual difference, +1s have the potential to become very powerful. For example, let’s say a friend of yours +1s a hundred restaurants all over the world and you really trust his taste. The next time you are in Chicago and want pizza your “Chicago Pizza” search will include his +1 pizza recommendation at the top of your search. Think about it, where are you going to go for pizza in Chicago?

Some reviewers have seen the “logged into Google requirement” as a limitation of the +1 button. However, this is irrelevant on smart phones and other mobile platforms. Moreover, having the ability to turn the +1 off during searches by logging out of Google may be important in some situations.

The second serious advantage Google’s +1 has over the Like button is the sheer size and diversity of Google’s businesses. Google is the most popular search engine, controls most of the advertising dollars on the Internet and owns high traffic sites such as Youtube, Blogspot and Google Maps. In addition, they are firmly entrenched in the mobile device market, have recently developed their own browser and a hundred other things. The +1 button will work seamlessly across all things Google and this dramatically enhances its usefulness to both users and advertising professionals.

Social media buzz from sites such as Facebook and Twitter is already incorporated into organic SEO rankings. The addition of Google’s own +1 will give Google more information and will likely be disproportionately weighted in their algorithms in the future. This fact alone will increase +1’s market penetration.

Moreover, +1s will increase click through rates. Physiologically people always want what they think other people want. Internet ranking systems are immensely popular and have fueled the growth of many websites. +1s inclusion in Adwords and because will influence click though rates and it’s likely that +1 will dramatically impact Adwords.

Another fascinating angle to +1 and Google’s development of social layers is that +1 should enhance search in general and diminish the pervasiveness of content farms and search junk. +1 at the moment is source agnostic but the entire reason social media tags work, (including Like and +1) comes back to the fact that a user will place a higher valuation on information based upon his/her perception of the source’s legitimacy, expertise and knowledge. Some recommendations are just more valuable than others and these are subjective distinctions. Source ranking is something search has never managed effectively.

As the Internet develops and grows the ways in which it can be used is constantly expanding and diversifying. It is difficult for any Internet marketer or web master to keep on top of all the new developments and it is tempting to just wait until a tool like the +1 is established before investing time and money into it. However, this is a Google product and a remarkably good idea. Moreover, the +1 tantalizingly lends itself to the possible introduction of a 100-point rating scale in the future and this would finally create a useful rating system for the Internet. Robert Parker made his name and radically changed the Wine Industry with his introduction of a 100-point scale for wine and Google could easily do the same in the future with +1.

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This is an excellent affordable conference to attend for online sellers. PeSA is a networking group that has evolved from eBay sellers back in the day to multi channel sellers in powerful growth mode. John and I actually met through PeSA years ago during our ecommerce online retailing days, and we’ll be reconnecting with many of our colleagues from the past (waving hi to John Lawson)

The topics covered in the conference reach far beyond internet marketing, including retail and ecommerce issues such as multi channel selling, fulfillment and delivery issues, and direct networking and problem solving with Ebay Australia execs.

We are most excited to visit our many Australian clients in person during this trip as well.   We will be spending time in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne. Contact us if you’d like to set up a meeting or get more information on the event.

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