As a person who has been studying, teaching and deploying strategies in internet marketing, sales and other internet related activity, Scott Gallagher has finally been immortalized…on a PUMPKIN!  That’s right.  Scott, along with 3 additional well known and well respected faces of internet marketing, have all been recognized as internet marketing gurus and each of them have had jack-o-lanterns created in their honor! 

To see which pumpkin should get the top spot in our pumpkin results page we’ll leave it up to you.

Vote for Scott in the SEO pumpkin contest.

We’ll tally the votes and release the results after Halloween.

Click here to Vote

Click the image below for full details! 

Super WiFi – FCC 

To an internet marketing firm this might sound like something out of a comic book, but according to Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the FCC, there is a faster and larger internet network which goes by this name which is one way, pending a commission vote.

This “super Wi-Fi” is much stronger than the current Wi-Fi signals that we are used to and is a perfect compliment to streaming video and video marketing. According to his interview with CNN, Genachowski says that these signals go much further, and can travel through more obstacles, such as walls, while losing less signal strength. His excitement was palpable in his comments, and he projects that this new technology is going to open the doors for many further innovations.

New Slide Show Mode in Places 

There has been an announcement about the new ability to view the images which are connected to a Places page to be viewed in a slide show. 

The idea behind this innovation is to streamline the process with which users view the available photos of a places page. It is going to allow users to quickly see all the images which are connected to that Place in a single easy to use format. When photos come from external sources, you can quickly and easily visit the web page to view the source of the photo. 

Google is confident that the new slideshow experience is simple and intuitive. All a person has to do to start the slideshow is find a Place’s page, and click on any of the photos. The Places Page will then dim into a background, and the view can select which photo they want to see an enlarged view of. 

YouTube Instant 

One of Google’s new features is known as Google Instant; a predictive search results provider that is useful to an SEO company as well as the casual web surfer. A student at Stanford, Feross Aboukhadijeh, made a bet with a friend about the creation of a similar engine for YouTube. The bet was that Feross, 19 years old, could create YouTube Instant within a single hour. He failed on the hour deadline, but he succeeded in creating YouTube Instant in one afternoon.

 The New Twitter 

Twitter has for a while now been engaged in a long term rollout of a service they have simply dubbed the ‘new’ Twitter. There are many new features involved in their overhaul of the service, one of which is the ability to embed photo and video content into tweets. The content can be visible directly from a user’s feed, changing the way that Twitter users share media.

Staying Up to Date: Major Changes for Reviews and Google

One of the biggest issues on the forefront today is how Facebook Places is going to change the way that consumers are able to review products and services. This new development completely transforms the way that consumers communicate their feelings about a business to one another.

Seb Provencher (@sebprovencher):

With the FB Places launch, we can officially say it: merchant/place reviews are dead. Status updates are the new merchant reviews.

Why is Facebook Places such a major player in the game? Well, it’s a much larger platform than the traditional word of mouth review or reviews on a store website because Facebook reaches millions. Facebook Places isn’t simply focused on “check-ins” because it gives users the opportunity to say something about the place as well. If you post a review on FBP and a friend comments on it, then it is also shown to their friends, and so on. On top of that, Facebook has built in default review tabs on Places pages, so people checking out the place can see what others had to say about it. This is big news for an Internet Marketing Agency.

David Mihm:

Ratings are important for a quick look by the consumer who doesn’t want to read through all the garbage.

 YELP Tells Businesses – Don’t Request Reviews

In a recent post on YELP from Luther Lowe, Local Business Outreach, tells businesses not to ask their customers for reviews. What do we think? Hmm…to be nice, we think it’s ridiculous. Why is YELP taking this stance?

If you’ve hired an SEO Firm, pay attention.  Since many business owners only solicit reviews from satisfied customers, the belief is that potential customers may not trust those reviews. Of course, we all know that you can’t please everyone all the time, so when a business only shows stellar reviews, it might make customers question the business. Now, this YELP post also states that, because these reviews were solicited, they could be filtered. 

We all know that no business is perfect, but if a customer calls, writes, or emails you to say something nice about your company, it’s a review – and an honest one. There’s certainly no harm being done by asking that customer if they would mind digitizing their comment, and YELP can’t do anything about it.

Of course, if the customer is not happy, it would be a bit outlandish to ask them to post something positive about your company on Yelp, wouldn’t it? Bottom line? Use common sense.

SMBS Implications for Google’s Integrated Local Search

Testing is apparently ongoing and has been showing up in New York City and Philadelphia. These new results are only appearing on Safari for Mac right now, but it shouldn’t take long for IE, Firefox, or Chrome to start returning the same. Keep your eyes peeled for updates.

Realtime Search at Google

Google introduced the features of their real-time search this past December. At that time, Google had a goal to provide content in real-time from a very wide ranging group of sources that would be integrated directly into an individual’s search results. The focus on achieving that goal was to bring more relevance to the web with the freshest information available.

Google is now making the most important enhancements to this by providing a home for this real-time information and by adding powerful tools to assist users in finding exactly what they are looking for. Users will soon be able to utilize Google Realtime Search by visiting www.google.com/realtime.  This is important for an Internet Marketing agency to understand.

Increasing Domain Results

Changes to Google’s ranking algorithm will now be returning a larger number of results for a single site to users that exhibit interest in specific domains. Whereas, in the past, a user might have only seen one or two results from one site, there will now be many more relevant results provided. For instance, if a specific business is typed into the search engine, the top results should appear at the top of the page and the remaining results will provided below, or on the following pages.

Google Improves Options for Mobile Users and Launches Guide for Business Owners

 
Google Maps for mobile was launched five years ago to help mobile users reach their destinations without the traditional paper map. More than 100 million mobile users are now taking advantage of this application every single month to find places nearby, get directions, and more.  This changed the game for an SEO Firm as well as the private user.

The web giant is constantly finding new methods for users to take advantage of when accessing reports, charts and financial data and Google Finance’s new mobile website is no different. It is an easily navigable site that provides lightning fast results in response to your mobile actions.

Google has also launched a “Getting Started Guide for Google Sites and Google Places” to assist business owners in increasing their overall web presence, as well as their Google Maps presence. By creating a site on Google Places, a business will have imperative information online and available for potential local customers to view when they search for businesses in their area. It can also help to cut down on calls asking for directions and business hours.

Yelp Deals to Offer Sneak Peaks

Yelp has been connecting local businesses with consumers in their area for years, and now they intend to provide additional value by highlighting special deals for users of the service. The deals that are slated to be highlighted are from local businesses that the Yelp community has identified as being consistently above average. So far, Yelp is only showing these deals in San Diego, but they will soon be showing deals from businesses in other cities as well.

Videos can be used to market to current customers as well as prospects. We create powerful video presentations for our customers that have become effective tools for educating their website users.  Check out this video for a delivery company.  Video Marketing brings your business to life!

Many have predicted this type of event coming for years, but with an upcoming deal that is in the works between Google and Verizon, it is possible that the equilibrium that has existed on the internet for as long as it has been around will be shifted forever.  This effects all who use the internet, whether you are an internet marketing agency, a website development firm or a casual web surfer.

Up until now, everything on the internet has loaded at the same speed. It has never mattered how much of a major player any website was, the content would load at the same rate as that of a minor website. This is what allowed independent sites and internet entrepreneurs to compete with industry giants online. This will change if companies are allowed to make their content load faster.

A decision that was made by the FCC during the Bush presidency has left an FCC who does not have the authority to make rulings on ISPs (like Verizon.). The current Chairman of the FCC has demonstrated his unwillingness to assert his authority on these issues, and has preferred to stay out of the public view on this issue. Congress is strongly influenced by the telecom industry, which when combined with the influence that mighty Google wields, means a very strong influence exerted on Capitol Hill by those wishing for this deal to go through.

If the internet becomes a non neutral entity, it will instead become a playing field very similar to that of cable television. This is a much larger problem than many people realize, because of the number of other services that are going to be delivered through the internet in the future. Because TV, phone services, and radio will all be delivered over the net in the future, a deal of this kind would end the endless possibility the internet has presented up to now, where anyone could start these kinds of sites.

This is a perfect example of how big industry has been able to hold the government hostage to their policy making time and again. There are still some people on the Hill who are devoted to trying to maintain net neutrality. Although they are outnumbered, people like Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, Jay Inslee, Henry Waxman, and Harry Reid continue to battle for an even playing field online. The truth is that now it will be up to America to exert pressure on the government to let them know that the public will not and cannot stand for an internet where money will be the primary factor in how fast content can make its way to the internet user.