Posts About ‘Business’

SEO Growing Pains – What the Search Industry Should be Searching for

Things continue to grow and evolve at such rapid pace, in our previously tiny industry. And to be quite honest, one of the major struggles we’re all facing is trying to keep up! I’m not talking about keeping up with life-changing technological advancements, Google’s mind-boggling algorithm updates, or even with the challenges of working in such a competitive industry. Instead, I’m talking about business 101 – recruitment challenges.

SEO blogs across the web have been voicing their ideas on what makes the perfect SEO team. Articles such as The Ideal Digital Marketing Team, written my friend and fellow blogger, Barry Adams, echo the industry’s thoughts.

Recruiting the right people, whilst growing an agency and keeping clients happy, is never an easy task. But what’s amazed us most about our recent burst of recruitment has been how we have changed. We’re simply not looking for the same people we were looking for this time last year. We’re not even looking for the same people we were looking for this time 6 months ago. (more…)

Awesome Marketing and Business Books – Recommended by the State of Search Team

Over the past couple of years I have been to a number of conferences and always come away with a list of books that have been recommended by the speakers. This got me thinking about the types of books that people in the industry read, whether they are directly related to online marketing, SEO or business in general so I spoke to the State of Search team and have compiled this amazing list.

I hope you find some of these useful and would love to hear what books you would recommend so if you have anything to add, please leave a comment at the end of the post to share with all the State of Search readers.

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Facebook IPO: Can It Beat Google?

Last Friday Facebook went ‘public’. Facebook stocks went up and down but did not as well as many would have thought beforehand. Still, Facebook got a lot more money from going public than Google did back in the days. But that probably isn’t that surprising considering the change in time and the more digital focus these days.

Both Google and Facebook make their money through advertising. And that money is what investors are after. So how much chance will investors have when it comes to getting a lot of money out of both? Which one is best to focus on? Wordstream made the below infographic to figure out just that. (more…)

Is Google in Android Trouble? New Accusations of Dominance Abuse

According to the Guardian Ilya Segalovich, co-founder of Russia’s leading search engine, Yandex, has said Google is “abusing its dominance to shut out competitors in cyberspace”. Segalovich places his remarks in response to comments made by Sergey Brin almost two weeks ago in the same Guardian where he said web freedom is facing big threats.

Interestingly enough Brin apologized for the words he used in that specific interview only a few days after the interview on his Google+ page.

The Yandex’ founders remark is another sign that Google has some hurdles to take in Europe when it comes to the image of their dominance.

The remarks are largely aimed at Android, which has been under fire for the past few days with an Oracle patent case going against them. According to Segalovich Android is a “strange combination of openness and not openness” (more…)

UPDATE: Official: Yahoo To Lay Off 2,000 and Being Sued: A Facebook SetUp?

Update: Yahoo now officially announced it will indeed be laying off 2,000 people.

According to Kara Swisher of AllThingsD, who is usually very well informed, this week could be a week of major changes for Yahoo. One of the older search brands in the industry is supposedly making a lot of changes, starting with about 2,000 lay offs in the next few days.

Is this the end of Yahoo as we know it? Will the company be restructured or will there be a maybe surprising other move, like a sale? At the same time as Yahoo is having its own issues they are being sued as a counter reaction by their partners Facebook over patents. To say that Yahoo is in rough waters in an understatement.

A few years ago Yahoo was the center of attention when both Google and Microsoft tried to buy the former search giant. This ended not with a sale but with a partner deal with Microsoft. This deal was made by the Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz who has always been a source for news, because there was always something going on.

With her departure things seemed to have calmed down, but behind the scenes her CEO successor Scott Thompson is as busy or busier than Bartz restructuring the company. According to AllthingsD this will result in 2,000 lay offs this week. And that is just the start. (more…)

Yahoo Sues Facebook: History Repeats?

Many many years ago I studied history. Which immediately means that people think I always win at Trivial Pursuit. I don’t, because ‘facts’ isn’t the main factor when it comes to studying history. As I said last Friday at a talk I did at the UK Searchconference, what you do learn is that history seems to repeat itself. Or better said: people keep on making the same kind of mistakes.

When I read on Techmeme (it really is all over there) that Yahoo was going to sue Facebook for no less than infringement on 10 patents, I had a feeling that what I learned back in college was about to happen again: history ‘repeats’. (more…)

Ranking Reports that Inspire Focus and Decision Making

Reporting on the success of your SEO work by using ranking reports alone doesn’t really paint a full picture. Good SEO should be about way more than just improving rankings; for starters is your client making more money, how’s their organic traffic growing, what does their brand look like online? Using ranking reports in conjunction with other metrics can provide a wider picture of how your website is performing and help to educate the client as to what they are getting from SEO, and what areas might need more attention.

However, despite explaining other important KPI’s and trying our best to explain how to measure true success and value; the one thing clients often want to know about first is where their pages are ranking. Sometimes this question can come before discussing traffic, conversions and other such metrics that actually make a real difference to their business. (more…)

Google Fined in France For Abusing Dominant Position

Things are not really going Google’s way in the first weeks of January so it seems. At least, if you look at the outside perspective of things. From the inside they did some pretty nifty things with the launch of Search Plus Your World for example.

From the outside however we have seen complaints about privacy, complaints about abusing their own products to push their own products and many other little hick ups which led us to think Google might be trying to kill themselves.

In the series of ‘ouch that hurts a little’ Google can add another to the list. A ruling Tuesday in a Paris court found Google guilty of abusing the dominant position of Google Maps. (more…)

Show Me The Money: Google’s Earnings in 2011

Google is not only the biggest when it comes to users, it’s also (one of) the biggest when it comes to money. There is a lot of money going around. Where does all that money come from? Part is adsense off course, but who spent the most?

This infographic from Wordstream gives us some insight. Turns out the finance & insurance industry spent the most, followed by retailers & general merchandise and travel & tourism. (more…)

Using Google Image Search to Identify ID Fraud & Image Theft – Your Risk as an SEO

I was all set to write a piece about something entirely different, but an attempt at identity fraud this weekend and the fact that I have had to do a lot of online research to find out if I am at risk, has brought up the question

When it is your job to be found online, are the search and social fraternity at more of a risk when it comes to ID fraud? (more…)

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