Creating SEO-friendly content can be a daunting task, but it’s the only way to make your website popular. Search engines rank your websites according to the quality of your content, therefore, it’s important to be relevant.

It works the same way for content marketing – the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases.

If your website has a decent  SEO, not only will search engines love it, but they will give it a higher ranking compared to non-optimized pages. What we try to tell marketers is to keep in mind SEO and content work hand in hand.

With the current social media explotion, it might be the case that some of you may be forgetting the importance of good content. In a social media strategy, good content means content that is engaging, easy to read/digest and incites people to leave comments and share it with friends and colleagues. Add to that rich keywords and phrases that appear naturally within the text and your content will be taking you places you’ve never been before.

Experts talk about a certain density for keywords in order to improve search engine rankings- that is- an average of 3 to 7 keywords for every 100 words. We advise you use Google’s Keyword Tool to help you choose the most relevant words for your website with the highest amount of monthly searches and the lowest amount of competitors.

Here are some of the factors we recommend you keep track of while developing content for your website:

* make it engaging

* frequency of updates on your website

* placing your target key words in positions of prominence

* using your target words in everything that you do that is related to your site

* keywords in meta tags and descriptions

* relevancy and quality of your content

The more relevant and valuable your content is, the easier it will be for those interested in your product or services to find you on the web.

It might still be too early to tell how Bing’s new rich-media search feature will affect marketers and their ability to be found online.

However, it’s gone live and it’s working. The new Bing Visual Search feature that displays search results in a grid-like image gallery instead of the traditional list of search results, was announced yesterday at the TechCrunch50.

What’s the concept behind Bing’s Visual Search?

To display simple, clear imagery to help users sort through lots of data easily. Of course you might agree that certain categories of search might find this more useful than others. So far Bing has only launched the new feature in beta (bing.com/visualsearch) which only works for a particular set of categories: cars, animals, people and products.

As explained on Search Engine Land, users must have Silverlight installed on their browsers to fully experience Visual Search. Also, statistics from Rich Internet Application show that nearly 73% of users have Silverlight and its adoption has been growing fairly quickly since NBCOlympics.com relied upon Silverlight for live streaming and on-demand video coverage during Beijing 2008.

The newly launched feature only works for 50 different categories and it is said Microsoft will be adding a new category every month according to what they believe is a popular search result.

So how do you get your product out in the grid-like image gallery?

AdvertisingAge explained Microsoft gets the information from data providers like Zappos or PC World, for digital-camera information, for example.

‘Thus, to make sure your merchandise pops up in Bing’s galleries, make sure you’re present in the feed of more than one industry heavyweight.’

A lot has been discussed lately regarding the growth of Microsoft’s Bing, but how fast is it really growing?  And is its current gain in market share due to the number of people checking out the new search engine?

I think many are keeping a close eye on the new decision engine, wondering how it works and often running comparisons between Google and Bing. But the main difference lies in that Bing helps users make better choices empowering them to gain insight and knowledge from the Web, moving more quickly to important decisions, as their press release states it.

A significant fact that has caught people’s attention is that Bing has a lower bounce rate than all the other search engines out there.

Microsoft’s press release also highlights that previous results from a comScore study across core search engines showed that as many as 30% of searches are abandoned without satisfactory results. The data also showed that approximately two-thirds of the remaining searches required a refinement or requery on the search results page.

A more recent study by comScore revealed Microsoft’s share of the search market rose to 8.9% in July from 8.4% in June.

So as a marketer, how can you gain a high rank on this new search engine? I guess many of us are asking ourselves the same question. For starters, I would say that many of the principles that you put in practice with all other engines would also apply to Bing.

For instance, interesting and original content matters big time. Page titles, keywords all should be relevant and appropriate to the content of your site.

How about signing up with Bing and managing your analytics with them. Try running a PPC campaign. Its been said they have a reputation for delivering better conversion rates and ROI.

In the meantime, do you think it’s good for Google to have more competition? What do you think the panorama will be like in a few months time?

Facebook took a bet on FriendFeed showing yet again openness in adopting advanced third party features that would improve its service: Flickr’s photo tagging, Delicious’s link sharing, and now FriendFeed’s search features in its real time search engine powered by Bing.

FriendFeed is the creation of four ex Google engineers that developed Gmail and Google Maps. Popular Facebook features as the “like” and “comment” items in users feeds, have been already inspired by FriendFeed. Pouring FriendFeed’s talent and technology on a social media platform that currently has 250 million users worldwide, is a massive blow to Facebook’s competitors in the real time search field: Google and Twitter.

Introducing the new share to “everyone” option in its Publisher (the application launched when you click on the Share button), Facebook will inject user data in a real time search engine that will allow search through shared media and status updates.

Will SEM switch from Google AdSense to Facebook?

What consequences will this deal bring to Search Engine Marketing and new media advertising? How will Google react?

Acquiring Twitter could be the most obvious response, and Google needs to catch up in integrating the social graph in a real time search engine.

FriendFeed’s co-founder Paul Buchheit, developed the original prototype of Google AdSense: Facebook could become web advertising heaven and a central hub of online social media, enabling 250 million users to share and search feeds from virtually any social media platform available on the web, including Twitter.

Is this the beginning of the end for Google?

For more on the subject, read the announcement on FriendFeed’s blog and Facebook’s press release.

“If nothing else, it will at least get people to realize that Microsoft is in this game and that there is an alternative to Google…”

Bing has come out swinging and is currently experiencing more buzz than Live Search ever had. With what appears to be a good product, and an aggressive advertising campaign against Google ($80-100 million), Microsoft looks poised to cement its role in search as the ‘decision engine’.

Based on the assumption that Bing is successful in increasing Microsoft’s stake in the world of search, one benefit that instantly comes to mind is more competition for Google. Overall, this makes the web a healthier place. More specifically, though, this would make advertisers less dependent on Google Adwords. This potential tilt in scales would force Google to listen more carefully to the needs and wants of brands, advertisers, as well as users.

For example, as of June 4th, marketers are officially allowed to bid on competitor’s trademarked terms to trigger display of sponsored search ads on Google in about 200 countries. This has concerned many brands because it has driven up the cost of keeping paid search ads for brand keywords in top positions next to organic search results. In what Google is calling a pro-competitive move, advertising costs are being driven up without much retaliation. If Microsoft, which does not allow bidding on trademarked keywords, held a larger percentage of searches than advertisers would have an alternative and Google would have to think twice before making a move like this.

Google has already reacted to the release of Bing by adding a link to its home page that says, “Discovering the web“, that takes the user to a page outlining Google’s numerous search features. It’s a nice feature which highlights various search functions that many users may not have known about. But it took some pressure from Bing for Google to apply this.

Furthermore, Google has recently been criticized for its move to request and display work from top artists without paying for it. Google’s argument was that they will be giving the artists so much exposure that they should not have to pay for the art as well. The simple fact is Google is a healthy company that pulled in a staggering $21 bn in global revenue last year. There is no need for them to save a few pennies at the expense of hard working artists. This just highlights the greedy and expansionist attitude that has grown on Google without a significant competitor.

Bing’s success would, in turn, most definitely be a good thing. A healthy dose of competition could be exactly what Google needs. Last week, Steve Ballmer announced that Microsoft would be willing to spend 5 – 10 percent of operating costs (or $1.12 – $2.25 billion) a year over the next five years on search alone.

Not only may Google have a serious search competitor on their hands, but evidently, one that has both determination and very deep pockets.

Earlier this week, Google Mexico and the Mexican government signed an agreenment to promote archaeological and historical sites in a bid to revive tourism following the swine flu epidemic, according to the Press Association.

Considering Google’s many, many… many talents, will the revival of tourism in Mexico be feasable? yeah.

The plan is for Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History to provide Google Mexico with information, images, videos and facts to help the Mexican tourism industry bounce back. They will profit from tools such as Google Earth and Google Maps which will link Google users to the various virtual tours of some of Mexico’s most renowned museums as well as rotating videos of the country’s major landmarks such as the pyramids and other ancient ruins.

The Mexican government has also placed its bet on a YouTube channel called INAH TV where all kinds of information regarding Mexican sightings, museums, galleries, ruins, ethnic information and exhibitions will be available to 85% of Mexico’s entire internet population of Google users.

Other initiatives such as the online contest dubbed ‘Let’s put Mexico on the Map’ have been designed for college students to simulate some of Mexico’s most prominent landmarks using Google’s 3D animation software, Sketch Up.

This is yet another example of Google’s great potential and how the search giant can be leveraged to best suit your needs, regardless whether you’re a marketer, a company, or an individual. Take the aforementioned agreement as an example, although it is presented from a macro perspective, the same ‘principles’ used by the Mexican government can be applied in conjunction with any online marketing  strategy, adding or substracting a few instruments here and there.

What’s interesting though, is that a country such as Mexico looks to Google to bring tourism back on track following the outbreak from a few months back.

What do pages at the top of Google have in common? Good content.

Marketers are always looking for the best ways to optimize their websites. Before getting into the details of things we can already think of a list of activities to achieve this, for example: URL structure, meta tags, website architecture, keywords in the URL and web content, relevancy, etc.

But before we get into all that, we must turn our attention to content. Google loves content and good content is key to website optimization. It’s very important that you understand who your target audience is when building your website in order to cater your content based on that target market.

In most cases, you have the audience who is looking or needs something in particular, but is not sure what. Then there’s the audience who knows exactly what he/she wants who will go straight to the place where they can find it.

First thing they will do is run their keyword search on Google, land on a specific website, and boom! purchase is made. It is much easier to appeal to a person who already knows what he/she wants because all they do is execute their search using the exact keywords and land on the right website.

Those who are hesitant are harder to convince, therefore, good content is required. Having the right content, a good selection of keywords and clear website strategy will definitely get you a high position in Google.  Some main aspects to look at: keywords, keywords, keywords.

It is important you review your Pages or landing pages against the keywords from search. Study all the possible keyword options, from the most relevant to the least, including stem variations of keywords, and review those generating high bounces or more conversions and make your modifications accordingly.

Also, revise your content thoroughly together with your site navigation as to guarantee a better website experience for your users. This will lead your audience to your final objective. Offering useful information will lead to a call-to-action, this in turn will generate more leads and most importantly, increase sales.

Google today is launching their interest-based advertising which works by delivering ads based on previously viewed sites, searches and activites on the web.

As an effort to make online advertising even more relevant, Google is opening this beta version to select advertisers on their partner sites and YouTube, however, it will soon be available to the entire user base.

Google’s official blog explains how “these ads will associate categories of interest-  say sports, gardening, cars, pets-  with your browser, based on the types of sites you visit and the pages you view. We may then use those interest categories to show you more relevant text and display ads.”

In other words, Google will link ‘categories of interest’ based on the users web surfing habits. So if you’re one who searches for -U2’s upcoming concerts- Google will know that you’re interested in music and show you more music-related ads. Google currently has 30 top line categories and about 600 detailed categories.

Of course privacy issues have once again resurfaced the minute this ad solution was presented. The good thing about it though, is that users are free to opt-out and have complete control over which ads they want to see.

These options can all be set-up on the Google’s Ad Preference page. In addition, users can also add interest categories or remove categories from the preferences.

Andy Beal (Marketing Pilgrim) offers more insight on the subject in particular Google’s opt-out option for interest-based ads.

Scouting and actually finding the right online agency for your business can be quite a daunting task, not to mention, expensive.

Having an agency to manage all online advertising activities nowadays has become a core element within most businesses’ marketing strategies, thus requires a bit of time and dedication in finding the right fit for your product or service.

The most important initial step throughout the selection process is carefully reviewing the background and experience of the online marketing agency being considered. At the same time, companies should make sure that these agencies provide sources for all of the company’s internet marketing requirements and be fully aware of the services offered.

Being GAAC Certified is already a major plus. And it is why 77 considers it ultimately important in order to qualify as an experienced web analytics consultant and a full service online marketing agency.

Being an official Google Partner involves offering a wide variety of services including:

• Installation: For technical assistance on getting Analytics properly installed on your site.
• Consulting: To help you take action once you have Analytics properly configured.
• Training: Onsite, classroom, and webinars are all available.

Looking for ways to optimize your Google Analytics account or struggling to set it up from a scratch? We will use our vast knowledge in Google Analytics, SEM as well as personal approach to assist you.

We give great value to all our clients and it is why we are committed to offer the best and most competitive services available in the marketplace today. If you would like to review 77Agency when considering the appointment of your online marketing agency visit the full overview of the services we provide or refer to our 77Agency Website.

As a Google Analytics Authorised Consultant, we offer professional analytics services and technical consulting to our large client base—including American Express, Halifax Bank of Scotland, Rackspace and Barclaycard, amongst many other top corporations in the entertainment, financial, food & beverage and travel sectors.

“Being accepted into the Google Analytics Authorised Consultant program is a great accomplishment for 77. After many years of extended experience using Google Analytics, 77 can demonstrate clear expertise and understanding of the system and provide its clients with highly-optimised campaigns together with advanced web analytics consulting. We are very proud of being welcomed into the program,” comments Fanoel Nerini, 77Agency’s IT Director.

“We are delighted to add yet another highly experienced Google Analytics expert to our consultancy network and look forward to strengthening our partnership with 77Agency” says Alan Wrafter, Program Manager at Google.

The Google Analytics certification means 77 can provide clients with insight into creating better Internet marketing campaigns as well as evaluate the performance of client web sites and marketing activities and identify necessary changes to improve performance, thus leading to increasing its client’s ROI.

Below is a press clipping that ran on DailyNet, an Italian online communication & marketing news source this week: