Is SEO Dead? How to get traffic in 2014 and beyond...
Google is making it hard for the small business or online marketer to rank a website, as their search results are more catered to authority websites like About.com, Amazon.com, Wikipedia, etc... How does the small guy with a small budget manage to get ahead in the online world? Well, it's all about social media marketing these days, SEO should never be a priority. Make sure your website is properly optimized for its keywords and focus on reaching out to potential customers on networks like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. You have to be very creative these days, you can't just use software to generate backlinks and send out mass blog comments. Google would rather you spend money on a PPC campaign than spend money on SEO. And that is fine, because PPC is very profitable as well - if you know what you're doing. In 2014 you should focus on social media marketing and PPC campaigns. Own an ecommerce site? well start submitting your products on sites like nextag and shopzilla - PPC will pay off. Don't have a large budget? Social media marketing! Get creative with video and content marketing! Develop an app for your website or business and submit it to the Google Play store! This is FREE! Use sites like AppMakr to create apps without knowing how to code. It's not that difficult, and the future is all mobile, so get with it or get lost.. I'll send out a more detailed guide later on today or tomorrow.
In June, the US Federal Trade Commission warned seven “general purpose” search engines — including Google, Bing and Yahoo — about the need to ensure they were properly disclosing paid ads. But 17 other “specialty” search engines were also warned. Which ones? The FTC wouldn’t say. Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request, Search Engine Land can now reveal the names.
Our story from June — FTC Updates Search Engine Ad Disclosure Guidelines After “Decline In Compliance” – explains the warnings that were sent in more detail.
At the time, the FTC said that AOL, Ask, Bing, Blekko, Duck Duck Go, Google and Yahoo all received warning letters. It also said that 17 of the “most heavily trafficked” specialty search engines for shopping, travel and local information also got letters, but it refused to disclose which ones, when I asked.
I thought that was pretty odd. Why was it some big secret? But, that was an opportunity for me to file my first-ever FOIA request, at the end of June. This week, by good, old-fashioned snail mail, I got the list.
Drum roll please:
Bizrate
Citysearch
Expedia
Kayak
Nextag
Orbitz
Priceline
Pronto
Shopping.com
Shopzilla
TheFind
Travelocity
TripAdvisor
Yellow Pages
Yelp
Yahoo Local
Yahoo Travel
It’s odd that Yahoo, which already got a letter for being a “general purpose” search engine, also got two others for travel and local. It’s not like Google or Bing got similar letters for their travel, shopping or local search engines.
CPC Strategy was fortunate to have WizeCommerce/Nextag CEO, Jeff Katz sit down with our CEO Rick Backus in a video interview to discuss ecommerce and marketplace consolidation.
This is the third video in the series which covers Google and online search, as well as the future of online shopping.
In this video, Jeff discusses WizeCommerce, as both a platform and a shopping channel.
Last week, we shared the first part of an exclusive video interview with WizeCommerce CEO Jeff Katz and CPC Strategy CEO Rick Backus about Google Shopping and online search.
In a continuation of the exclusive interview, Jeff talks about Google’s purchase of Channel Intelligence and his thoughts on where comparison shopping websites are headed over the next 5 years.
More than 50 jobs are expected to be created by computer services company LogMeIn in Dublin.
LogMeIn, which provides cloud computing and mobile services, says the new staff will be recruited within the next year. Positions will include sales, customer support, marketing, finance and human resources.
Meanwhile, also in the Republic of Ireland, 125 jobs are to be created over the next five years after online comparison shopping company, Nextag, sets up its international headquarters in Drogheda, County Louth.
When one company controls nearly 82% of the global search market and 98% of the mobile search market, it's time for serious changes.
By JEFFREY KATZ
- Originally published in the Wall Street Journal -
June 7, 2012, 6:53 p.m. ET
It's a position all business leaders would love to find themselves in—a massive IPO, dominance in the marketplace, and a blank slate from policy makers to do practically anything they please.
Google has enjoyed this unrivaled position for nearly a decade. It is the most popular search engine in the world, controlling nearly 82% of the global search market and 98% of the mobile search market. Its annual revenue is larger than the economies of the world's 28 poorest countries combined. And its closest competitor, Bing, is so far behind in both market share and revenue that Google has become, effectively, a monopoly.
The company has used its position to bend the rules to help maintain its online supremacy, including the use of sophisticated algorithms weighted in favor of its own products and services at the expense of search results that are truly most relevant.
Google is so powerful that the European Union recently announced that the company must alter its business practices or face charges for violating antitrust law.
At my company, Nextag, a comparison shopping site for products and services, we regularly analyze the level of search traffic we get from Google. It's easy to see when Google makes changes to its algorithms that effectively punish its competitors, including us. Our data, which we shared with the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21, 2011, shows without a doubt that Google has stacked the deck. And as a result, it has shifted from a true search site into a commerce site—a commerce site whose search algorithm favors products and services from Google and those from companies able to spend the most on advertising.
Most people believe that when they type "convection microwave oven" or "biking shorts" into Google, they will receive a list of the most relevant sites. Not true. That's how Google used to work. Now, when someone searches for these items, the most prominent results are displayed because companies paid Google for that privilege. In addition, Google often uses its prime real estate to promote its own (often less relevant and inferior) products and services, prohibiting companies from buying its best advertisements.
As a result, by controlling which companies, organizations and causes get exposure, Google has become a brand killer. If Google pushes a merchant or company to page three of its search results—let alone page 40—it is life altering. This "cloak of invisibility" for less-favored brands flies in the face of Google's original mission to "organize the world's information"—or at least organize it in a manner that is in the best interest of consumers, rather than of Google.
As the CEO of a price-comparison company that benefits from Google's search results, I openly admit that we—along with everyone else in the industry—have been impacted by these changes to Google's search platform. In the past, we have benefited precisely because we've provided one of the best shopping sites on the Web—and Web traffic from Google used to follow accordingly. Google highlighted our services in search results over their own, because our services were better—and they still are. But Google's latest changes are clearly no longer about helping users.
We're at a pivotal moment. Google has spent years trying to monopolize every avenue through which a company can reach users online—whether it is through search, advertising, email, mobile devices or browsers. But now that European Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia has given Google a July 2 deadline to respond to the EU's antitrust concerns, let's hope the company's directors wake up and take corrective action for the sake of Internet freedom.
If I were Mr. Almunia, here's what I'd be pushing for:
First, Google needs to be transparent about how its search engine operates. Today Google hides behind forked-tongued gobbledygook that is meant to obfuscate. Google should disclose, clearly and in plain English, when advertisers receive better placement in search results and when a result is a Google-owned property. And when a competitor's service is the best response for the user, Google should highlight it instead of its own service.
Second, Google should provide consumers with access to the unbiased search results it was once known for—regardless of which company or organization owns the service. It should also allow users to reduce the number of ads shown or incorporate a user's preferred services in search results.
And third, Google should grant all companies equal access to advertising opportunities regardless of whether they are considered a competitor. Given its market share and public commitment to providing users with the most relevant, helpful information, Google has an obligation to provide a level playing field.
But mostly, Google should take a good, hard look at its philosophy and business model, and ask if this is the company Sergey Brin and Larry Page set out to build when they chose as their motto: "Don't be evil."
"Don't be evil" is, of course, a ludicrously broad mandate. But by ending its monopolistic practices, Google can again take a step in that direction. More than any other company, government or regulatory body, Google has the ability to ensure that the Internet remains free, dynamic and open. But for that to happen, its directors need to change course.
Mr. Katz is the CEO of Nextag, and a former CEO of Orbitz Inc., Swissair and LeapFrog Enterprises.
An interesting, and ultimately I think pretty good, response from Google to an op-ed from the CEO of comparison shopping engine Nextag declaring Google a monopolist abusing its power.
Effectively, what SVP Amit Singhal is saying over and over again is: if you don't like what we're doing, go somewhere else. Almost the entire response is about Google's competitors — they even bring up Google Minus Google.
That's the thing — Google remains the best search product. In my opinion, they're risking that with the Google+ nonsense, but people are free to go elsewhere.
This gets tricky when mobile comes into play though. Google is deeply woven into the fabric of Android and switching away from Google (not just the search engine) becomes problematic. In that regard, Google is lucky to have Apple around (and vice versa, by the way).
Google's larger problem though is one of perception. They've quickly making enemies out of seemingly everyone across multiple industries as they continue to attempt to do it all. And those enemies are increasingly calling them out. Having the words "Google" and "Monopoly" next to each other in a WSJ headline — even if it's a misguided attack — isn't good. Hence Google's response.
And this will continue. As will investigations by governments into Google. And the grey areas of what they're doing are bound to look black and white to someone eventually.
