From @mitchjoel
Bad:What should we do on twitter?
Good:Why should we be on twitter?
I think this sums up the Twitter conversation going on in many businesses. Twitter is all over the news, in many circles of conversation, and people want to know how they can use it to improve their businesses.
The question I hear most from people is What should they do, but as @mitchjoel states, it's not what, but why. Are you going to be able to use Twitter to actually enhance your product? Improve customer service? Engage in conversation? Or is your only purpose to one way market?
My personal opinion is people first think of Twitter as an easy one way marketing tool like a billboard or newspaper ad. This is a failure of using Twitter to its full potential.
By figuring out the why, before the what, the chances you'll turn Twitter into a useful tool to enhance your business success will increase.
Plus, you might find out you don't need to be on Twitter and save yourself the effort of figuring out what to do.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Microhoo! - The Microsoft/Yahoo! Search Partnership
Microsoft(Bing) and Yahoo! announced a search partnership to begin in early 2010. You can read more at CNN Money. This partnership will put Bing search results from between 25-30% of total market share. Yahoo will still be responsible for attracting premium advertisers, no word yet direct effect this will have on PPC advertisers.
The search partnership has great timing as Bing continues to spend its way to popularity. This should lead to another swing of talk about the, now more interesting, Bing vs. Google competition. Although Google is still king, and will be for the foreseeable future, this is the first real competitor (as far as search share goes) they've seen this decade.
With Bing now a substantial piece of search results, will PPC costs in Google begin to become cheaper as advertisers shift budgets around? Or will advertisers even bother shifting budgets any more than they already have? Will the relatively low PPC costs of Yahoo! and Bing begin to cost more?
Plenty of questions around this merger, should make for an interesting 2010 for SEM.
The search partnership has great timing as Bing continues to spend its way to popularity. This should lead to another swing of talk about the, now more interesting, Bing vs. Google competition. Although Google is still king, and will be for the foreseeable future, this is the first real competitor (as far as search share goes) they've seen this decade.
With Bing now a substantial piece of search results, will PPC costs in Google begin to become cheaper as advertisers shift budgets around? Or will advertisers even bother shifting budgets any more than they already have? Will the relatively low PPC costs of Yahoo! and Bing begin to cost more?
Plenty of questions around this merger, should make for an interesting 2010 for SEM.
SEO and Social Media Don't Mix
Given the immense growth of social media sites over the past six years and the importance of link building in search engine marketing, it's not surprising that one common and flawed question continues to come up every few months: "How much of an effect do social media sites have in determining our website's visibility and PageRank?"
The simplest answer is: little to none. Generally speaking the largest social networking and social bookmarking sites provide very little utility when it comes to link building. While many sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Del.icio.us, YouTube and even Flickr once allowed unfettered direct linking, nowadays many social media sites have been obfuscating off-site links with page forwards, frames, and the more common "nofollow" anchor tag restriction. These small changes have essentially nullified any previous and current efforts to improve a site's Google PageRank via social networks.
Naturally, from an SEO perspective, this brings us back to square one. If it isn't possible to effectively utilize social media to increase your website's visibility, then what inherent value does it even have?
One of the best approaches is to think of your social media pages as being micro-sites for your preexisting base of customers; they can serve as convenient locations where you can provide former and current customers with content that's fresh, interesting, and immediate. Whereas you would normally apply a long-term strategy of attracting new customers to your company's website in the form of competitive SEO, a Facebook page is the perfect place to connect with current customers in order to create short-term conversion opportunities in the form of product announcements, discounts, and important company news.
That's just one example, of course. But it is one of the many opportunities that social media can provide your company if you approach it as a unique, social tool and not simply as a means for improving your PageRank.
The simplest answer is: little to none. Generally speaking the largest social networking and social bookmarking sites provide very little utility when it comes to link building. While many sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Del.icio.us, YouTube and even Flickr once allowed unfettered direct linking, nowadays many social media sites have been obfuscating off-site links with page forwards, frames, and the more common "nofollow" anchor tag restriction. These small changes have essentially nullified any previous and current efforts to improve a site's Google PageRank via social networks.
Naturally, from an SEO perspective, this brings us back to square one. If it isn't possible to effectively utilize social media to increase your website's visibility, then what inherent value does it even have?
One of the best approaches is to think of your social media pages as being micro-sites for your preexisting base of customers; they can serve as convenient locations where you can provide former and current customers with content that's fresh, interesting, and immediate. Whereas you would normally apply a long-term strategy of attracting new customers to your company's website in the form of competitive SEO, a Facebook page is the perfect place to connect with current customers in order to create short-term conversion opportunities in the form of product announcements, discounts, and important company news.
That's just one example, of course. But it is one of the many opportunities that social media can provide your company if you approach it as a unique, social tool and not simply as a means for improving your PageRank.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Verizon to cut 8,000 jobs
Multiple news agencies reported that Verizon plans to cut 8,000 jobs to offset a 21% decline in quarterly profit. In the last 5 months AT&T has cut about 12,000 and Sprint Nextel has pared down another 8,000 people.
That being said, is this the final gasp of the telecom bust of 1999-2000?
Could it be that the historic, copper-telephone cable between us is in the throws of a final cut as the US moves to Voice Over IP connectivity? One thing is for certain, cutting 28,000 jobs in the telecom market doesn't bode well for 3rd quarter employment numbers.
That being said, is this the final gasp of the telecom bust of 1999-2000?
Could it be that the historic, copper-telephone cable between us is in the throws of a final cut as the US moves to Voice Over IP connectivity? One thing is for certain, cutting 28,000 jobs in the telecom market doesn't bode well for 3rd quarter employment numbers.
Monday, July 27, 2009
New First Scribe Website
The First Scribe team is proud to announce the launch of the new web design for www.FirstScribe.com. The design is 2 months in the making so we are happy to see it live!
Check it out at FirstScribe.com!
The new design focuses attention around our three main service areas:
Check it out at FirstScribe.com!
The new design focuses attention around our three main service areas:
- Web Design
- Web Development
- Search Engine Optimization
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Microsoft Bing! Bomb? Boom?
Here's a very quick summary of events, just in case you haven't been following the soap opera courtship between Microsoft and Yahoo the last 2 years: Google is kicking their butts in search.
According to Comscore numbers, Google holds roughly 64% of all Internet Searches. Yahoo and Microsoft want a ticket to the ball but their search algorithms have long lagged behind Google's stronger ability to serve relevant results.
Enter Bing!
Microsoft decided to take the bull by the horns and write a new search algorithm - named Bing! The new engine launched the last days of May and reviews are in. They're mixed.
At First Scribe, we are relatively indifferent. The Bing engine seems to work, although it appears to fall for some old SEO techniques in the area of keyword-loaded directory structure. We are most impressed with the persistent search history feature and the image search but that doesn't seem to be enough for my staff to be using Bing any more than Google.
The Big Budget
Multiple news sources have stated the marketing budget for the launch of Bing between $80 and $100 million.
The payoff?
With a month of the open market behind Bing, Comscore is reporting that Bing received 8.4% of the Internet search queries in June, '09. Up from 8% in May. Google sat flat at 65% and Yahoo dropped from 20.1% to 19.6% in the same time frame.
What's the ROI?
It's always difficult to measure an ROI from such a broad-reaching marketing plan as this. However, we can tell you that many of us were looking for Microsoft's share to break the 10% range of search market share and they fell short of that expectation.
We have a suggestion -
Maybe Microsoft would have done well to spend a portion of the budget on a Google Adwords campaign.
Huh! Looks like they did. I wonder if they use Omniture Analytics:
According to Comscore numbers, Google holds roughly 64% of all Internet Searches. Yahoo and Microsoft want a ticket to the ball but their search algorithms have long lagged behind Google's stronger ability to serve relevant results.
Enter Bing!
Microsoft decided to take the bull by the horns and write a new search algorithm - named Bing! The new engine launched the last days of May and reviews are in. They're mixed.
At First Scribe, we are relatively indifferent. The Bing engine seems to work, although it appears to fall for some old SEO techniques in the area of keyword-loaded directory structure. We are most impressed with the persistent search history feature and the image search but that doesn't seem to be enough for my staff to be using Bing any more than Google.
The Big Budget
Multiple news sources have stated the marketing budget for the launch of Bing between $80 and $100 million.
The payoff?
With a month of the open market behind Bing, Comscore is reporting that Bing received 8.4% of the Internet search queries in June, '09. Up from 8% in May. Google sat flat at 65% and Yahoo dropped from 20.1% to 19.6% in the same time frame.
What's the ROI?
It's always difficult to measure an ROI from such a broad-reaching marketing plan as this. However, we can tell you that many of us were looking for Microsoft's share to break the 10% range of search market share and they fell short of that expectation.
We have a suggestion -
Maybe Microsoft would have done well to spend a portion of the budget on a Google Adwords campaign.
Huh! Looks like they did. I wonder if they use Omniture Analytics:
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
God More Popular Than MSN?
July 6, 2009 marked an important date for Christians when the world's oldest bible went online. The Codex Sinaiticus dates from the 4th century and it is arguably one of the most important texts in all of Christianity. The book contains nearly 800 of the original 1,460 pages, including roughly half of the Old Testament and the entire New Testament.
Pages had been separated from the whole and traveled to institutions across Europe. Starting in 2005, the project coordinators collected the existing pages and scanned each to a digital format. The composition became available online last week.
Instant Popularity
Now, the kicker -
The Codex Sinaiticus received 96.4 million hits in the first 48 hours online.
With some simple math we can extrapolate a number for the entire month. Please know that we recognize that we are taking phenomenal liberties in our analysis so these numbers are dubious at best. But let's not forget that we are talking about God on a Technology blog...
With a little math, presto - 96.4 million in 48 hours converts to 1.45 billion in 30 days
For comparison purposes:
Pages had been separated from the whole and traveled to institutions across Europe. Starting in 2005, the project coordinators collected the existing pages and scanned each to a digital format. The composition became available online last week.
Instant Popularity
Now, the kicker -
The Codex Sinaiticus received 96.4 million hits in the first 48 hours online.
With some simple math we can extrapolate a number for the entire month. Please know that we recognize that we are taking phenomenal liberties in our analysis so these numbers are dubious at best. But let's not forget that we are talking about God on a Technology blog...
With a little math, presto - 96.4 million in 48 hours converts to 1.45 billion in 30 days
For comparison purposes:
- The April 8, 1966 edition of Time Magazine stated that "God is Dead". You can purchase a copy of that magazine for $9.99 today on eBay.
- The world's most expensive Bible available for purchase sells for $130,000
- World population estimates for the 4th century are between 190-206 million
- According to Comscore, Microsoft sites received 1.21 billion searches in April, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
First Scribe Hiring Again!
There isn't a rock big enough to hide under if you are hoping to avoid the economic climate this year. That being said, First Scribe continues to thrive as a company, hiring our 10th member of the team last month.
Welcome Ben Koren to our Web Development team!
Ben and his wife Amanda recently moved back to the Twin Cities, where they grew up. Prior to moving here, Ben studied Computer Science at Winona State University. It was here he found his passion for web development and server administration.
In his spare time, Ben enjoys time outdoors with his wife, video games, cooking, and home improvement.
Welcome Ben Koren to our Web Development team!
Ben and his wife Amanda recently moved back to the Twin Cities, where they grew up. Prior to moving here, Ben studied Computer Science at Winona State University. It was here he found his passion for web development and server administration.
In his spare time, Ben enjoys time outdoors with his wife, video games, cooking, and home improvement.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Analytics Certifications
As marketing budgets become more scrutinized there is an increased need to stretch every dollar for optimum performance. Stretching that dollar is a topic by itself, but in order to find out how far that dollar goes we need to have proper analytics in place. Whether that solution is Omniture, or Google, First Scribe is able to cover both avenues.
Dan Epley recently completed the Omniture Certified Professional: SiteCatalyst and Google Analytics Individual Qualification certifications ensuring that whichever package is chosen we're prepared.
Omniture is the industry-leading product that provides web sites with one place to measure, analyze, and optimize data from all online initiatives across multiple channels.
Google Analytics is a web analytics solution that gives you insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.
Dan Epley recently completed the Omniture Certified Professional: SiteCatalyst and Google Analytics Individual Qualification certifications ensuring that whichever package is chosen we're prepared.
Omniture is the industry-leading product that provides web sites with one place to measure, analyze, and optimize data from all online initiatives across multiple channels.
Google Analytics is a web analytics solution that gives you insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.
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