What’s on the horizon for internet marketing?

The internet has been a tremendous source of revenue for small businesses since the early 1990s and as search engines have evolved, many companies have become dependant on organic search engine traffic. While this has given a lot of opportunity to a lot of businesses, it has also made it easier for them to ignore traditional marketing channels, which is a dangerous decision to make.

Google?s agorithm change is coming

As with many of their other major algorithm changes, if you?re not ready, you will almost certainly see devastating results. This particular change will have a more powerful effect though, because their engineers are working hard to eliminate the benefit that irrelevant links provide in ranking. This is a good goal, but unfortunately it will hurt many of the legitimate web sites in addition to the illegitimate ones along the way. Those sites that have few inbound links, especially links from unrelated web sites will suffer the most.

Focus on developing quality content for your web site and inbound links from relevant web sites and you will be able to weather the storm and come out ahead, but you?re going to need to get started today. Remember, it takes a considerable amount of time before the benefits of a search engine optimization campaign begin to materialize. More importantly, don?t rely on Google. The traffic that you get from them should be viewed as a bonus ? not something expected. Promote your business with a diverse mix of marketing channels, such as direct sales, internet advertising, email, or guerrilla marketing.

Is my enemy?s enemy my friend?

Microsoft and Yahoo have been battling the now monopolistic Google for many years with little to show for it. The battle may be changing course soon however because of talks of a merger or partnership agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo in regards to search. This could potentially bring the two companies (collectively) near the same search volume as Google, taking away some of their dominance and effectively leveling the playing field.

Aside from the issue of market share, there will potentially be a lot of innovation as a result of this partnership. By bringing the best and brightest minds from Microsoft and Yahoo together a creative synergy will be developed and new products and services will be created. In order for Google to stay on track, they will have to follow suit and come out with their own new products and services.

Local search is changing how we do business online

There once was a time that you would pick up a giant yellow book and flip through it when you needed to find a business. Then the internet came along and this handy old tool fell by the wayside. There were limitations to this new technology though. After all, what good was it to find ten pages of search results for plumbers if none of them we in your state? On the flip side of the coin, is there any value to you as a business owner to have prospects that you are unable to server calling you? Enter local search, which provides you with a way to find businesses that offer what you?re looking for in your city. Now, if you have the type of business that has a physical location, you can reach even more prospects, highly targeted prospects at that.