There was a commotion when the search engine company, Yahoo and the operating system giant Microsoft announced their ten year merger for the sole purpose of battling Google for supremacy in the field of search engines. In that ten years deal Microsoft will pay Yahoo in order for the former to power the latter’s search which when combined is projected to have a search market share of thirty percent (30%), which is a expected to close the gap between them and Google who currently holds sixty-five percent (65%) share in the field of search.
After its announcement last July 29, 2009 there were some media hype and then silence until now. This time the Association of National Advertisers have submitted to the Department of Justice a brief open letter wherein they pledge their support for the bid or the merger of the two companies. They have asked the DOJ to act swiftly on the matter because of the fact that the future of online advertising is riding on this deal.
Here are some points that were stressed by the Association of National Advertisers in their letter to the DOJ.
1. Search advertising is an important form of online advertising and that it should have a healthy competitive market for search and search advertising, wherein a company that dominating such aspect with having any competition would be considered as unhealthy.
2. The Microsoft and Yahoo deal brings about a healthy competition to Google where the latter is currently dominating all aspects in the search engine field including search advertising.
Overall, the proposed merger of the two companies will enhance competition that will prompt all companies involved in the search engine field to improve their services which will ultimately benefit the internet users.
These are just the salient points of their letter and along with it comes the plea to the DOJ to swiftly act on the anti trust review that it is conducting regarding the deal.
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Email marketing have been regarded to be one effective way to advertise your products or services, it is also an effective way to make your website known to the international public. That is of course with on the point of view of the person who is selling the product or services or who is implementing the email marketing strategy. However, for the recipients of the email this is not the case, most of them views the emails being sent to them as annoyances and is just something that clogs up their email’s inbox. This is the reason why most email services company have provided a filter that will automatically classify such emails as spam. If your email is being classified as spam which is ultimately being deleted even without being seen by the recipient how can you get your message across?
First is for you to formulate an enticing subject heading. This is the first opportunity for you to get your message across due to the fact that when people open their inbox the subject is always the first to be seen. So you have to make sure that your heading will prompt the recipient of the email to open that which you have sent.
Second make your content again to be enticing but do not make your email’s tone sound like it is just another spam mail. If possible write a general letter which when people read it, it would seem like it is a personal email. In this way you will catch their full attention and will entice them to read the whole email.
It may also help if you incorporate images to further spark the interest of your readers but do not overdo it as it may take a long time for your email to load which again is another annoying factor.
Knowing that it is a marketing email it may help if you start your letter in an apologetic manner so that your reader might not think that you are not only after your own interest, instead you will project an image that is being concerned with the welfare of the email recipient as well.
One question that may be lingering in your mind is that why should you still bother in making an email following this type of guidelines while in fact your email will just automatically be filtered out towards that recipient’s spam box? The reason for that is the filter is not 100% reliable some legitimate emails might also end up in the spam box that is why many internet users are still checking their spam box to manually filter out spam messages so whether they like it or not an email with a good enticing subject will have a high percentage of getting opened by the email recipient.
With the advent of Web 2.0 and the rapid development of technology either in the internet or the mobile application many speculates that some methods of communication will diminish as there are new and improved alternatives that will be offered. Among these methods of communication that is feared to lose its significance is the e-mail. The email being a replacement or alternative to sending messages across the world instead of snail mails is now being speculated to be one of the technologies that might be gone years from now. Such premise came from the fact that similar services are now being offered through other means such as through microblogging and social media networks like Twitter and Facebook respectively.
With this, SEO consultants and SEO companies also fear that along with its diminishing luster it will take along with it one very significant online marketing strategy or method and that is Email Marketing. However, these speculations regarding the emails’ fate has not one basis, instead email or the emailing process is here to stay and this is because of the following reasons:
1. If you notice all website requiring registration one basic requirement in order for you to register is that you must have an email address, thus this just shows that email is still important and getting such information is going to benefit both the website owner and the potential client.
2. Most websites specifically social media network sites require emails in order to send you updates regarding the social site or regarding your profile with them, a clear cut proof that social media network will not replace email soon as they too require the services of an email.
3. Email is universally used, this means that everybody in this world or if not majority of the worlds’ population have at least one email address, and with this type of statistics and number of users it is no doubt that emails is considered to be a standard requirement or must-have for most people.
4. Email is still improving, why improve a product if it will just be scrapped later on? That is a question premise that answers the query of whether email is a dying mode of communication and the answer is a resounding no, this is due to the fact that there is continuous improvements being done to emails such as increasing the inbox capacity among others.
Email is here to stay, so if you still haven’t got one yet I suggest you register an email account and experience the ease in the communication.
The Google page rank has been around for many years already and it has been viewed as a gauge on the importance of your website these in terms of the number of external sites linking to your own website. Many SEO companies and SEO consultants have considered Googles’ page rank as one of the primary key to getting a high Search engine results page ranking. But recently Google has released a statement regarding the importance of the page ranking and according to the search engine giant page ranking is not playing a very significant role in the increase of a websites SERP ranking. With this announcement came the action of Google to remove the page ranking tool in the webmasters tool that is being offered by Google to the public free of use. Page ranking may have it’s significance but because of the fact that it is not that directly significant in the SEO process to increase the SERP ranking of a website, Google was forced to remove it in their webmasters tool. The removal was also due to the fact that there are a lot of SEO companies and SEO consultants that have been obsessing over the page rank of their website lessening the time spent on SEO strategies that really matter in the increase of the SERP ranking of the target website. According to Google they have been telling people about this for quite some time now and so to fully concretise their claim Google decided to remove this feature regarding page rank in its webmasters tools.
One of the golden rules that website design providers should follow is that they should only create fast loading web sites. Even though you may have designed a great looking website, people will not stay long enough to see it if they become irritated with the snail-paced load. One of the ways to ensure a website design that would load fast is to minimize the use of images. Images do make pages look really good but images should not make up majority of your website design. Break it down as much as possible to essential HTML. If you notice, the well known sites have scarce images because load time is more important for them. Link building is also an important part of a websites development.
Once you have picked out the images that you would like to use and that fit your website design, make sure to optimize them. Use either gif or jpeg formats. Further trim down the image’s size by choosing the number of colors needed in the color palette. Fewer colors would result to a smaller sized image. Using tables wherever possible would also make your website design lighter and faster to load. Great looking designs can be integrated into tables and they can be used in the homepage, menus, and others. Most importantly, tables load very fast because they are just HTML code.
Simple and appropriately sized icons can also contribute to your website design. Use these only to highlight sections of your site. In connection with this, you can also minimize the use of animated gifs. This is because they would only add to the time that your website will load. In addition, they can be irritating and distracting to the visitor. In addition to the above, try using background images more than you do big images. This can be done for images in headers and footers. Another tip would be to use Flash sparingly. There are now a lot of sites out there that are made entirely of Flash. They may look fantastic but it takes a very long time to load and can then put off visitors. These are some tips you can use for a good website design.
Apart from the search engine wars there is also a looming competition between social media networks. This may be due to the fact that the social media networks are now being considered as one of the prime place for performing internet marketing strategies. Social media networks are being targeted by internet marketers, SEO companies and SEO consultants. It has been observed that social media networks are being considered as one of the best tool nowadays to increase backlinks, page ranking, SERP ranking and conversion rates. It is no wonder that these social media networks does not end with just building forums and social communication networks they have also expanded to video incorporation, games and advertising. Social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Tagged have been among those who have ventured into becoming more than just a plain social media network.
Among the three Facebook is leading the pack with a total of fifty-nine percent internet users share based from traffic coming purely from the US. This is just proof that the popularity of Facebook has skyrocketed even past last years’ leader MySpace, this statistics is according to Experian Hitwise. MySpace came in second with a total of thirty percent internet users’ share and Tagged with around two percent users share. Statistics have clearly shown the Facebook have overtaken MySpace by more than a mile and it’s success may be attributed to the incorporation of different features from videos to games which would keep the internet users’ interest. If this kind of trend will continue on we may yet again see another Google-Yahoo-Bing competition in term of social media networks.
Expanding your business over the internet is not like branching out your establishment in different areas in your country where you can utilise the same concept and content in your establishment just like with your original establishment. In an online business you are not allowed to duplicate everything on the same website with a different URL, this is because of the fact that you are targeting different cultures and niches so one content may not be enticing or appealing compared with the others. In addition if you have duplicate content search engines might use this as a ground to ban your website for using copied content under the basis that search engines interpret duplicate contents are used to manipulate or deceive the same search engines, this is the reason why search engines have started filtering out duplicate contents and banning website employing such techniques. Unfortunately, some duplicate contents are products of carelessness and not really intentional so in order to avoid it here are some guidelines.
1. Use redirect if you have moved your site, there is no point of keeping two domain names with the same content if you only intend on using one of them so you should use a 301 redirect to channel visitors both human and spiders to your actual target site.
2. Be consistent in your links, this means that when you do internal linking make sure you link to other web pages in your website using a single URL format and not using different URL format when you link to a single page from different webpages in your website.
3. Use readymade tools provided by the search engines in order to track down any duplicate contents in your websites.
4. Minimise repeating your content, what you can do in your website is to make a teaser text and then a link to the whole content should the internet visitor be interested with the content. There is no need for you to write the whole text on a page and the same on another page.
5. Understand and learn how your content management system functions, this is to avoid having to incorporate duplicate texts. This is because of the fact that a text may not be shown outright but is actually incorporated in the website which may prompt you to redo the content or the text where the website will now have two texts of the same content.
There are websites that are really irritating to look at. Sometimes you can’t point them out but you still get this feeling that something is wrong and it is irritating. Some are identifiable though. Here are some of the common mistakes that can mar your web design.
First on the list is of course bad layout and bad web design. Web designs of this type are usually tacky, unbalanced, or overloaded. Instead of being simply informative, they can cause headaches because of information overload. You have to create web designs that will give viewers a pleasant viewing experience. Pages that are slow to load are also not good for today’s viewers who are known to have short attention spans. This is especially irritating when there are load meters that show just how slow it is really loading. Keep pages lean and fast so that visitors are not bored.
Tacky and wild color schemes would make your web design look foolish with too bright colors. These colors would also make the text difficult to read. You would not want your visitors to squint while reading. Also, make sure that the spelling and grammar of your text is correct. Errors in spelling and grammar can make visitors grimace and immediately leave your site. A good web design would also have fonts that are of the appropriate style and size that fit the purpose of the site. Do not use fonts just because you fancy them. This goes along with the need to make sure that your site is readable and pleasant to browse through.
Another thing that visitors really dislike is the automatic music that plays when you open a web site. This is particularly irritating when the background music does not fit the subject matter. Add to this the difficulty to find the off switch for the music and you get a visitor who is just about ready to tear his hair off. To make your web design clean, you also have to avoid overloading it with ads especially the ones with really big banners. These ads should instead be well placed and well designed.
In Psychology, it is recognized that colors influence people’s moods, attitudes, and feelings. This is why this is a very important element to consider in your website design. People would view your website and the colors used there could unconsciously influence your viewer’s decision of whether they would stay and explore your site further or visit another site. Generally, a web site has about ten seconds to get a user’s attention span. Colors then are powerful tools to use so that your website design stands out and hooks viewers. Here are some colors and their meanings and possible implications of their use in website design.
If you want your website design to exude authority and power, black is the color to use. It is also stylish and timeless. Make sure to juxtapose and use other colors as contrast to the black. For instance, the text could be orange or yellow so that it stands out.
Red is considered an emotionally intense color and can stimulate faster heartbeat and breathing. This color is usually used in website design for web sites that want to evoke emotions such as dating web sites. A softer pink, on the other hand, is more relaxing and calming. This is usually used in website design for baby care products as it would also promote feelings of softness and gentility.
Nature is symbolized by the color green. It is the color which is easiest on the eye and can also improve vision as it is calming and refreshing.
White symbolizes innocence and purity. This is a great color to use as balance to other colors in your website design. This will also make your website design easy on the eyes.
It is important to choose color based on the theme of your website design. It is also imperative to keep in mind site content, audience, culture, and gender preferences. Men and women generally differ in their color preferences. Different colors have varied connotations in different cultures. It is also important to show proper restraint in the use of colors. Not more than five colors should be used in website design.
We’ve all been to web sites that confounded and irritated. These are the ones with poor website design and content. They have links that don’t work, have unfinished sentences, and contain irritating flashing images that distract rather than inform. A good website design then has good layout. One that would make it easy for the visitor to the site to immediately see what he or she needs.
To make a good lay out, you must always start with the same thing – a blank page. This will help in having a clear vision and plan out the website design. There are many elements to consider in planning the layout. This would include headlines, navigation, images, and textual content. These elements of website design have their usual placements in the layout. For instance, a web page headline is usually at the very top of the page. On the other hand, navigation is usually found at the left or at the top of the page. The elements’ placements are crucial to helping the visitor of the site navigate your page.
Points of interest are also helpful. These would be the focal points of the website design. These are the places where your eyes would be drawn to. One way to create a focal point would be to center the elements. For instance, there could be a headline, a photo, and a caption. This could be a little boring though but subsequent changes in the position of the elements and the margins around the image can already improve it.
Alignment of the elements is also important because it would imbue the structural framework of the website design. Alignment can enhance the mood of the page as well as its effectiveness in getting its message across.
Cohesiveness of the different elements is also important so that the website design is clear. To ensure clarity and cohesiveness, always keep the page goals in mind. These goals are helpful guides to placement of the different elements.
To improve your knowledge and skill in website design, it would be helpful to look at different web sites that you like and see how the different elements on the page are arranged.
