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Study suggests that Google could be the best choice for search advertising

A new study has suggested Google may have potential benefits for businesses planning to use search engine advertising alongside direct marketing.

Research by Efficient Frontier found that the website was dominating the field in the UK, with it claiming around 85 per cent of search engine spending in the first few months of this year.

It was also revealed that the website's return on investment had increased by 14 per cent since the end of 2007,

David White, the general manager of Efficient Frontier Europe, said: "We are seeing an increasingly strong front runner in Google in the UK and broader European markets.

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Facebook, Google Join Data Portability

Major social networking Web sites are beginning to bridge the exclusivity gap by giving their users an option to make their profile content available on third-party Web sites through Data Portability. Social networking addicts welcome this feature as it'll spare them the trouble of typing out information about themselves and building connections on different Web sites.

MySpace on Thursday announced Data Availability that would allow its users to share their profile information with partner Web sites namely, Yahoo!, eBay, Photobucket, and Twitter. Two other players -- Facebook and Google -- seem to have been working at the same time on a similar model.

Facebook is expected to announce "Facebook Connect" today, a facility that would allow users to share their profile data on other Web sites. According to speculations by Techcrunch, even Google is expected to announce "Friend Connect," which it defines as a set of APIs for Open Social participants to pull profile information from social networks into third-party Web sites.

Facebook has been the stingiest in this regard so far. It has a history of blocking a user for sharing his/her Facebook information on a third-party Web site. Adopting data portability comes as a major step for the company.

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Google 'Salts' Web With Social Networking

Google, which lost out to Microsoft in October for a share of Facebook, Monday began rolling out a Friend Connect service designed to seed social-networking features throughout the Web.

Google’s service, in “preview release,” is designed to let non-programmers add a “snippet of code” and get features on their Web sites like user registration, invitations, members gallery and message posting.

Google Friend Connect could be an early step toward decoupling such features from popular social-networking destination sites like Facebook, backed by Accel Partners and Greylock Partners, and MySpace, acquired by News Corp. for $580 million in 2005. But in a conference call Monday, David Glazer, Google’s director of engineering, said the service would not detract from “the value” of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and its own Orkut, whose businesses are based on attracting and monetizing millions of users.

Mr. Glazer said the initiative would extend social networking to “the long tail” of small, specialized Web sites that will be able to carry social networking data along with the major sites.

As the move toward a socially networked Web gains momentum, major social network destinations—in danger of becoming walled gardens in an open environment—are beginning to free the data planted by users. Last week MySpace, Yahoo, Twitter and eBay announced a data portability initiative to let users share their profile data with outside Web sites. That was followed within days by the announcement of pending “Facebook Connect” data portability features.

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Link baiting is latest happening thing in SEO which normally every SEO guy is doing.

What is Link Bait?

Link bait is content on your site to which other sites link because they want to, not because you ask them to. Traditionally, links are tough to get, at least link back, which nullifies their value in some search engines. But with link bait, you "bait" your content and sit back and wait. However, the new twist in link baiting is in social bookmarking. Whether you use Digg or del.icio.us or you've got pictures (so you're using Flickr), you should tag any great content you have.

So, how does link bait help your SEO?

• It creates more links to your site, which really do help you in the search engines. If you don't believe that, try a search on "click here." Furthermore, the links come to you -- you don't have to get on your knees and beg for the links.
• It creates more links to your site, which send potential customers your way. After all, the whole purpose of SEO - coming up high in the search engines - is about reaching more people.

No Doubt link baiting can provide us alot of links in no time but shouldnt we have to do it daily.
As on digg.com every second home page stories are shifted down.
But at what point does the time and effort and money cost more than the links you acquire? You see, I am giving someone an excuse to create some funky AJAX tool that enables you to enter a number of hours or dollars spent. The tool should then spit out a figure in links by PageRank score or something, detailing the number and quality of links required in return for that link bait investment. If you come up with that tool, I'll link to it. The question is, is the development of that tool worth the link?

7 Ways to Promote Your Content as Link Bait

Below are seven ways to promote content while stimulating conversation. Some are focused on your most important brand advocates – your current customers. Other methods are about getting the attention of influential and trusted individuals who can help spread the word.

1. Hire a Consultant with Influence
From the start of the project, hire a consultant or company that shows off and promotes its creative projects. Examples of this could range from cartoonists to designers to ad agencies. Getting them involved in your content creation will ensure your project gets promoted on the consultant's Web site, blog, column or newsletter, creating word-of-mouth (WOM). The added benefit is you can use the consultant's name and reputation in your press releases and other promotional activities. This will draw more attention and credibility to your project.

2. Mailing List – Email and Postal
Send an email or direct mail to people on your mailing list letting them know about your new content. One never knows whom your current customers have connections with. It could be a major publication, blog, or even Web site they may manage. To increase the results, offer an incentive enticing people to view the content. One way to persuade people is with a discount coupon code.
Hilarious Gardening Cartoons
www.example.com/Cartoons
"Save 20% Off Your Next Order"
Coupon Code: www.example.com/Cartoons

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IE-only marketing campaign skewed Firefox, Safari numbers

A Web measurement firm Wednesday blamed a massive online marketing campaign aimed only at Internet Explorer (IE) users for skewing its April data, which said Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari had lost significant amounts of market share.

A Web measurement firm Wednesday blamed a massive online marketing campaign aimed only at Internet Explorer (IE) users for skewing its April data, which said Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari had lost significant amounts of market share.

The company, Net Applications of Aliso Viejo, Calif., has posted revised data on its Web site that shows Firefox and Safari still dropping in share, but by much smaller increments.

An "extremely large" marketing campaign among a small number of sites that targeted only users of IE was responsible for the aberrant numbers, said Vince Vizzaccaro, the executive vice president of marketing at Net Applications.

The additional IE traffic skewed the month's results in the Microsoft browser's favor; at the same time, it depressed the market share of Firefox, Safari and Opera Software's flagship browser, Opera.

Vizzaccaro would not name the company that owns the sites that ran the IE-only marketing campaign, but did say that it was "totally unrelated to anything with Vista, Microsoft or Windows."

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