Tag: Google

Google Global Market Finder and Ads for Global Advertisers – Business Development Tip

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With the consistently expanding online market currently serving over 1.9 billion consumers, Google offers a set of tools to help businesses expand and market globally.

Launched recently, the Global Market Finder is a free tool to help businesses identify foreign markets in which there appears to be “high demand for their products and services.” Familiar to those who have used the Keyword tools in AdWords, The Global Market Finder helps you to evaluate new markets by showing you the following information for each market:

  • Volume of local searches
  • Estimated price for keywords
  • Competition for each keyword

The numbers give you an idea of how competitive the market is, how demand is in one country compared to another, and the cost to start advertising in the new market(s).

Here’s how it works:

First you enter your country and principle language (US and English); then enter the keywords related to your products and services. From the drop-down menu, select the global market that interests you (Africa, Americas, Asia, Emerging Markets, Europe, European Union, G20, Middle East, or Oceania). The Geographic Distribution results identify the Location (country), a bar graph that indicates strength of Opportunity, total number of Local Monthly Searches (12 month average), a Suggested Bid Amount for your associated keywords, and a bar graph indicating level of Competition.

Next you can opt to make use of the Google Translator Toolkit that allows you to upload a document (your intended ad landing page, for example) or specify a url and select the language from which and to which you want it translated. Next you can create a “TM”, or translation memory file where the translated document will be stored.

All of the above tools are accessible from the newly launched website Google Ads for Global Advertisers, which “pulls together resources for businesses to find the right market for their products and services, translate their websites and ad text, find new customers with relevant online ads, and understand options for international payment, shipping and customer service.”

Google Apps for Business: Why It’s a Smart Choice, Especially If You’re a Small Business

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For many small businesses, Google Apps for Business is the perfect fit. One of the most obvious benefits is cost. At only $50/user/year, you can manage upfront costs by buying only what you need. Google Apps is ‘cloud computing,’ meaning everything is performed and accomplished online over an internet connection, you don’t need to spend money on:

  • Expensive computer hardware such as a server or powerful desktop machines
  • Additional energy costs associated with running powerful computers
  • Special HVAC to maintain equipment performance
  • Additional office space, racks and furniture to store equipment
  • Installation, set-up and maintenance costs associated with computer hardware and software
  • Software purchase and updates
  • Storage and Back-Up solutions
  • IT department and Tech Support

Instead, for a fixed cost you get a comprehensive suite of powerful communication and collaboration tools, including:

  • Google Docs (web-based documents (like Word), spreadsheets (like Excel), drawings and presentations (like Visio and PPT)
  • Gmail + Postini (archiving and e-discovery)
  • Google Calendar (share project calendars, integrate with Gmail and popular calendar programs, mobile access)
  • Google Groups (for internal or client projects: share docs, calendars, folders, videos)
  • Google Sites (build collaborative sites for project workspaces, team sites, intranets, more)
  • Google Video (video channel that hosts and streams your videos across any operating system means you don’t have to share via email or burden IT with a complex on-site video solution)
  • More Apps: Google Reader, Blogger, Picasa Web Albums, AdWords
  • Storage: 25 GB per user of email storage (Blackberry, iPhone and MS Outlook interoperable)
  • Business Security: SSO, forced SSL, custom password strength requirements
  • Business Support & Reliability: 99.9% uptime guarantee SLA, 24×7 support
  • Google Apps Marketplace: you get access to a large variety of additional enterprise applications, such as Intuit Quickbooks, Fedex, and so much more, that help you with your most common business functions like sales, marketing and finance. Many applications can directly interoperate with Gmail, Calendar, Docs and contacts, helping you to do your work faster and more efficiently.

For added functionality and flexibility, what we do for customers is integrate Google Apps for Business with custom development work we provide, such as a corporate branded website application, ecommerce solution, or extranet, making everything accessible online 24/7  from a secure, centralized custom Dashboard. This option provides you with the most control and options for managing a wide variety of business tasks online, particularly useful when you have satellite offices, an external sales force, or employees working from their home office.

Bottom line is you just can’t beat the cost. For roughly .14 cents/day/user Google Apps for Business provides you with most, if not all, of what you need, leaving you free to safely set aside funds for custom development work and other marketing and business development initiatives.

Want to hear what others say?  Click here to visit Google’s Business Apps Client Stories page.

Social Media Counts Towards SEO

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The rapid growth in popularity of social media has caught the attention of the major search engines like Google and Bing. In October 2009, Google Social Search was launched, which delivers results for the terms you searched from within your online social circle. By October, Bing implemented a new feature that delivers ‘Liked by Your Friends’ in Facebook information along with the search results. Many website owners interested in achieving page one rankings in the major search engines for the terms important to them wondered if their popularity on the social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others could or would influence their rankings.

Well as it turns out, it does to some degree. In a recent interview with search engine guru Danny Sullivan, quoted here at seomoz.org, a Bing representative stated the search engine does “look at the Social Authority of a user.

Tweets from more authoritative people will flow to the top when best match relevancy is used.” Google uses what it terms ‘Author Authority’ for both organic and news rankings. Google also looks to see how many people share a news article, much the same way Twitter ranks the top re-tweeted Tweets and Tweet topics. Google’s Author Authority and Bing’s Social Authority rank content according to their proprietary ‘authority’ scores. Google points out, however, that Author Authority differs from and is separate from PageRank, which impacts where on the search results pages a web page may be listed.

I highly recommend you read the post at seomoz.org for the ideas the author presents. Concerning search engine optimizing the social media content you produce, as always you want to include the keywords around which you are building your authority. You’ll want to keep your titles brief, containing only one or two keywords, so that the search engines can easily find your content.

Build your Followers by providing important content that is interesting to them. Reach out to new Followers both online and offline. Build a community among other “authoritative authors” who also write about the same subjects as you. And by all means, keep your social media sites, as well as your website, updated regularly with fresh, relevant and interesting content that makes readers want to share it with others.

Effects of Google’s “Reasonable Surfer” Patent

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In a recent post by Eric Enge for Search Engine Land™ entitled SEO Implications Of Google’s “Reasonable Surfer” Patent, Eric explains that Google’s newly patented link analysis technology “basically states that all links on a page do not have to carry (or pass) the same weight. The concept is that the value a link should pass to a target page will be largely based on the probability that a user would click on it.”

Enge goes on to explain that the technology’s qualitative analysis determines such things as:

  • “Links to unrelated content are highly unlikely to be clicked
  • Specific types of content, such as “about us” or “privacy” pages, may be more—or less—likely to get clicked, depending on context
  • Location of the link on the page (above the fold should get more weight than below the fold)
  • Emphasis to make links more prominent, such as changing size or color, should add weight”

The presentation, placement and emphasis of links on your web pages are more significant now than ever before.

The effect on a website owner of Google’s continued technological improvements to its ranking and analysis systems is greater accountability.

Google wants you to think about everything you put on your web pages and ensure that it is highly relevant and valuable to the end-user. If considered elements your web pages are lacking, your total ranking score will be affected.

As Enge points out  “the concept of how a reasonable surfer would behave appears to have a lot of merit, and the search engines are investing everything they can in better ranking systems and ones that reduce the impact of spam.”

Another important consideration he expresses is that “basic usability guidelines still apply. Understanding how a user sees your site and their behavior when they interact with it has always made sense. Now consider the idea that this can [not only] influence the ranking of a given page, but also the value of the links it provides to other web pages.”

Search engine optimization is more important now than ever.

Every aspect of your website, from site architecture and content to external linking must be carefully, thoughtfully and strategically planned.

Participation in the search engines, particularly Google, is like an on-going entrance audition. The adjudicators hold a score card of evolving criteria upon which you are being constantly judged. If you want to “get in” and “stay in,” you’d better make sure you aren’t lacking in any way.

Why give them a reason to say “no.”

For more technical information about the effects of Google’s new patented technology read Google’s Reasonable Surfer: How the Value of a Link May Differ Based upon Link and Document Features and User Data.