Well, doesn’t time fly? Another Friday, another quick tour around the world of search engines and internet news!

Firstly, technology news. Firefox yesterday announced that its latest release will include what they are calling “location-aware technology“. For a taste of what this will be able to do you can download the loki add-on right now! YouTube has reacted to last month’s launch of MySpace Music with the ability to buy tracks from iTunes and Amazon.com without leaving YouTube. This means you can watch a video, then download the track, without leaving YouTube.

Anyone ever sent a drunken email, then somewhat regretted it in the morning? Well our friends at Gmail have come up with an ingenious solution: Mail Goggles. Between the hours of 10pm and 4am if you try and send an email you will need to answer three mathematical questions before the mail gets sent! Ingenious…

So on to the good stuff…

Many of our clients spend months developing a new website and then use Google Analytics to analyse the behavior of visitors on their new website. Sometimes this just isn’t enough. Sometimes you need to ask your visitors straight. Did you like my website?, and did you find what you were looking for? If this sounds like you then you might want to check out this article about developing online surveys then try one out for real at http://4q.iperceptions.com/.

Whenever we discuss SEO with potential clients or indeed with paid search clients contemplating optimising their website we always ask why?, and what do you want to get out of it? It is always beneficial for us to understand the objectives of an SEO project, and then a strategy is then defined from there. If you haven’t yet committed to SEO but thinking about it then please read this article which explains the importance of having clear objectives and a defined strategy even before you talk to people like us! What You Need to Know Before Committing to SEO

The fundamentals of SEO as you have I’m sure you have heard me say before is code, content and trust. Trust boils down to links. Lots of relevant and authoritative links. Sounds easy but in reality link building is often a often a slow and laborious process. To get a bit more understanding about the importance of link building please read this quick article: SEO Link Building Fundamentals

Quick one on social media. If your current task list includes building a social media strategy for your organization (or yourself), then read this article that walks you through thinking about the branding created by the profiles you create. Branding Strategies for Your Social Media Profiles on the Web

This excellent article from Search Engine Land looks at tools currently available to monitor what your competition is doing on the video sharing sites. Not for everyone but useful nonetheless. Video Search Hacks For Checking Competitors

Thought that each week I would share one or more of my favorite websites or tools that are either fun or just a little brilliant.

This week I would like to introduce you to an invaluable tool called Crazy Egg. This tool supplements your web analytics and allows you to get much more information about how people use, engage and interact with your website. Much more accurate overlays, a really neat heat map and loads of other features. If you want more information on getting this working on your website just give me a shout!

Cheers and have a great weekend – hope the sunshine sticks around!

Well, Friday again, and another exciting week in the world of web and search marketing! It would be difficult not to start with the launch of the “Google phone” although from all accounts, it’s a case of “nice try, but better luck next time!”.

For me however the best Google fact of the week is this startling piece of information: “13 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute”

This is from an in-depth article on how Google sees the future of online video… For those without a calculator this means that each week 131,040 hours of video content is added to YouTube. Hope Google has some pretty large server capacity!

Everybody who receives this email probably uses one or more social network, be it Facebook, LinkedIn or maybe even MySpace, but this article gives a really great overview about who around the globe uses social networks and how the users interact with advertising. You might not be thinking about social networks as an important marketing tool at the moment but don’t be afraid to get involved! Social Networking – A Global Perspective

This article is incredibly valid for a NZ audience. One of the biggest challenges we face is tracking “click to bricks” traffic. I.e. a browser who researches online who then buys offline. This article gives a number of tips that to measure offline impact (conversions) from your online channel: Tracking Offline Conversions: Hope, Seven Best Practices, Bonus Tips

One of the things that you may or may not know is that for some time now Google has been customizing your search results based upon your preferences, search history, geographical location, previous query, etc. etc. This is unimportant for most but Google now will tell you if the result you have has been customized so you have an option to revert to a normal result. Google Now Notifies Of “Search Customization” & Gives Searchers Control

Interested in knowing what the next big music battle is going to be. Well the first salvo has been shot from MySpace with their launch this week of MySpace Music. Fundamentally, Add tracks to your profile, public, and private playlists and play them as many times as you want for free. Going to be interesting to see how Apple reacts…

As you may already have deduced, I’m quite keen on the whole idea of cloud computing. The idea of having all my digital information, (including music, video, data as well as the usual suspects of documents and email) available from anywhere I am, using any number of devices is incredibly attractive. One company in the USA has really taken this whole cloud computing very seriously by moving their whole IT function online by:

• Hosting email and shared calendars on Google Apps
• Using Google Docs for their wiki and for shared word processing and spreadsheets
• Hosting website and blog at TypePad
• Sending outbound email through DNSExit
• Host DNS with DynDNS
• Sends out customer surveys with SurveyMonkey
• Test software on many different platforms using CrossBrowserTesting.com

Read more about their experiences click here… Keep your head in the clouds

Finally this week if you are interested in winning $10,000,000 then look at Project 10 to 100. Google is looking for ways to change the world… If you have an idea that you think could change the world, get your entry in quick!

Hello again and hope you find today’s web news and articles of interest!

In a week that has been dominated by the collapse in the world’s financial markets thought I would start with looking at the future rather than the past with this fantastic look at what the future has in store for computing; The intelligent cloud

Firstly a mixed week for Google; In the same week that You Tube have banned videos that use guns, Google has decided to allow adverts on abortion following a legal challenge from a Christian pressure group! But the upcoming ad-sharing deal between Yahoo and Google is being watched by European regulators. It’s worth keeping abreast of these events as it will no doubt have ripple effects for the NZ market, especially for those of you who regularly advertise overseas. EU scrutinises Yahoo-Google deal

We often ask clients what their campaign KPI is, or indeed their most important success metric. If you’ve been asked that question and were unsure of the answer then check out this interesting article that will help you decide if you should be targeting conversion, share, traffic or something entirely different: Eight Rules for Choosing Web Analytics Key Performance Indicators

I’m often asked if social media such as facebook, twitter, blogs, RSS and the like really has any place in selling product or indeed helping drive traffic to a website. My answer is always yes, but only with a lot of work and only if you have a specific objective (see above!). This article takes the angle of how social media can help your PR projects… How Social Media Can Help Your PR Efforts

Here in New Zealand we are way behind the major markets of the USA and the UK in terms of online media spend, especially in term of growth in online video advertising. So it is interesting to see that it looks like in the US the market is already reaching saturation point!! Online Video Advertising to Peak in 2012

I like this one: One question which almost everyone asks themselves at some point:Can Google Be Trusted?

Here at SureFire because we spend all day thinking about search engines (and most of us are still sane I promise!) but we are often forget that many people out there don’t really know the first thing about search engine optimisation. Well, if anyone in your company is still confused about this whole SEO thing then send this article top them: The 3 Cornerstones of SEO

And finally a couple of Google tools that you may find useful. Firstly, Google Insight for Search is a very useful tool that allows you to research and compare search patterns for specific search phrases over different locations and time frames. And secondly, Google Trends which can give you a really quick insight into search trends and also into volumes of visitors to websites. Great for comparing your website to your competitors!

Have a great weekend and ’till next time!

Big announcement from Google this week in the name of its new browser Chrome, which by all account already has over 2% of the browser market and it’s still in beta! If you’ve not tried it then do download and check it out – it is light, fast and has some really nice features. Apparently next on Google’s list is complete domination: http://googleworlddomination.com/

Apple on the other hand had a lackluster conference this week, just announcing some new iPod nanos and iTunes 8 which I do recommend you check out, if not just for the Genius application that lets users automatically create playlists from songs in their music library with just one click.

An article here that may be a lifeline for the humble banner. A US company has developed a way to allow banners to become transactional. Check out the story here: Allowing Web Users to Transact Through Ads

However much I try to explain the benefits of Search marketing to increase brand awareness most marketers don’t agree so great to see this experiment from Google validates my thoughts: Click or No Click, Google Says Paid Search Pays

Google is ten years old this month so check out this article which outlines some of what Google expects to see in the next few years – the focus being on cloud computing! Spin around Google’s decade.

Also, when asked this is the answer to the question of what Google imagines the perfect search engine to be: Your best friend with instant access to all the world’s facts and a photographic memory of everything you’ve seen and know. That search engine could tailor answers to you based on your preferences, your existing knowledge and the best available information; it could ask for clarification and present the answers in whatever setting or media worked best. That ideal search engine could have easily and elegantly quenched my withdrawal and fueled my addiction on Saturday. I’m very proud that Google in its first 10 years has changed expectations around information and how quickly and easily it should be able to be retrieved. But I’m even more excited about what Google search can achieve in the future.

Here at SureFire Towers we often wax lyrical about the importance of at integrated online strategy. Well for all you B2B Marketers out there here’s an article that explains the issue and solution rather well! A Call to BtoB Marketers – Integrate Search Now!

Wondering how politician’s use the online space to promote themselves, then check out this article that talks about the budgets Obama had been spending online: Google Grabs Most of Obama’s $5 Million in Online Ad Spending. Like it or not like us even the next leader of the Free world can’t help spending most of his budget with Google!

Ever wondered how many people actually watch You Tube and why it might be a good idea to get to grips with this online video malarkey – well check this out: YouTube Dominates July 2008 Online Video Rankings with 5 Billion Views

Finally, if anyone like me seems to lose that important email at just the wrong time check out this handy application for outlook. Makes email life a dream! http://www.xobni.com/