Monthly Archives: February 2008

development, Marketing

Divorce Lawyers and GPS Clever Marketing?

Owen from the just sent this through this morning. It is website that can supposedly track mobile phones. I needed to see if someone was in the vicinity. So I clicked the link to the website. Give it go to see what I mean, and than I will explain more……

 

http://www.sat-gps-locate.com/english/index.html  

 

While the technology really does exist to be able to do this sort of tracking, the joke played upon the individually is humorous. The last laugh though is not on the joker. As you may or may not have noticed the last page was full of advertising. We can say with some certainty that even at a low conversion rate if the advert is visited for example 100,000 times that it will represent significant online revenue. So if you are planning a marketing campaign would you use this technique?

brand, business, Marketing, News, sales, service

Has Google Become Too Big?

Everybody loves Google or so the saying goes. A few years ago if you wore a Google T shirt you would be greeted by smiles as you walked down the street. But that was a couple of years ago. The market place has changed with Google now controlling at least 75 percent of the search engine market and respectively the same amount of advertising and they now hold a very secure position. Fundamentally Google has not done anything wrong. It is just that you have no choice when it comes to advertising. Small and big e-commerce sites all use Google advertising. For example Tech crunch , Digg etc.

Effectively there is no competition which means that Google can dictate terms and conditions and have a very big say over who does what in the market. If a website owner was to say the wrong thing they could find themselves on the other side of the fence with no advertisers. Now the much talked about takeover of Yahoo by Microsoft is the first step in readdressing this problem. I am still not comfortable though. Both of these companies have such a large influence and control of the most dynamic communication medium. Is it time that we should start to worry?

Maybe not just yet, but the signs are there. While we have all become Google search converts. What would it take for some of us to start using another search engine? The array of products that Google provides are truly amazing. From Gmail to Youtube all for no cost to the user and paid for by advertising. But as the old saying goes Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Is Google too powerful?

Links, Owen, Traffic

What is Link Bait?

Internet Gurus will know what it is, but many that are new to the internet an e-commerce will not.

What you have to do is:

Think of a topical piece of news, that concerns you and your readers.

They will return the link because they think it is interesting or funny what you have written.

This is one of the keys to getting listed higher in google or social networking sites.

Then link in all relevant parties who have been discussing this.

It could be a list of your favorite websites, or list of resources.

Then let people know that you are linking to them. Like this one to Owen

development, Personal, work, writing

How Many Times do you Need to Blog

 I was just reading some history about Darren Rowse and how he got into blogging. He recommended that if you want to climb the ranks of blogs you would need to be blogging quite a few times a day. While I can see the effect in this: it would keep the search engines busy and your readers too. Most of us being frank probably only have one really good idea every couple days so blogging more than that could became a bit stale. Of course if my readers wanted to hear my opinions about the American elections and the price of oil and gold I could be persuaded, I would still probably want to blog within a team. Just for the editorial checks… What are your thoughts? would you like to write severely posts a day?