w3logics

When it comes to Yahoo these days the news is rarely good. Between executive musical chairs and concerns about the direction of the company as a whole there is a need for some good news to come out of the once high-flying Internet company.

SearchEngineLand reports on changes that are taking place in the Yahoo search offering that are an attempt to get back in the game. Since Yahoo no longer has to worry about doing the actual search (it’s powered by bing these days as we all know) it’s job is to help those who use Yahoo search (who most likely have no clue that bing is involved at all and could care less) with nifty user interface tweaks that make the search experience better. The most obvious is the search “accordion” which gives the searcher the chance to see several types of results without scrolling down. Here’s a look.

I think it’s a pretty cool offering. Here’s the trouble. It’s still Yahoo search. I could spend the rest of this post talking about the other features that have been rolled out in addition to the one shown above (they are by the way a feature called “quick apps” and improvements on image search) but why bother?

Here’s the reality of the situation when it comes to Yahoo search. In order for it to grow it has to convince hardcore Google users to crossover (unlikely) or get the next generation of searchers interested (unlikely as well since they are more Google centric because their parents have taught them).

So where does this all lead? I don’t have a crystal ball but unless Yahoo actually persuades people that they are going to get more from searching on “bingahoo” there is really no compelling reason to switch no matter how many trinkets and baubles you put on the Yahoo search product.

Pilgrims, tell us what your view of Yahoo is in the marketplace for search. Is it relevant and does it have a chance to grow? What do you see happening over the 5 years for the search element of Yahoo?

Posted by randfish

You've probably already noticed that here at SEOmoz, we tend to travel quite a bit. Often times we're speaking at a conference or covering it on the blog, but sometimes we find ourselves wishing we had more time to hang out with the community. We needed to come up with a way to spend some quality time with you. So, we're sending mozzers out to cities all over the world to have Meetups and give us a chance to get to know you in a more intimate setting.

We're interested in learning first-hand what we can we do to make our software work harder for you, if you'd like to learn about a specific subject on the blog and in general, anything you'd like to tell us! Of course, we'll provide the beer, probably some food and at the very least some interesting conversation.

Upcoming Meetups

New York City - Oct. 19, 6-9pm Eastern
637 W. 27th Street - 8th Floor
New York, NY 10001

New York City is probably the best place we could think of to have our first SEOmoz meetup. Promediacorp has been gracious enough to let us use their amazing office to host the event. This should be a really great event as we'll have a few speakers in addition to food and drink. We are limiting the event to 50 people, so if you can definitely join us, please be sure to RSVP!

NYC Speakers:

Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz
Topic: Shhhh.... A sneak peek at new research from SEOmoz

Chris Winfield, CMO & Managing Partner, BlueGlass
Topic: Major Trends in SEO as seen from the team at BlueGlass

Greg Gortz, VP Sales, Zemanta
Topic: Link Building Best Practices for 2010 and beyond

Stock Photo by Nickolay Stanev

Sofia, Bulgaria - Oct. 29, 7-9pm
We're still waiting to finish the final touches on this event. Be sure to follow us on Twitter  or keep an eye on our events page and we'll announce changes as they come up.

Las Vegas - Nov. 10, 5:30-7:30pm Pacific

For the past few years we've held our annual Search Spam Party. This year at PubCon we'll be hosting a happy hour with free drinks and light appetizers for all PubCon attendees. We're still looking to finalize the exact location but we're planning on having it at or near the Wynn. So after the last session of the day head on over for a fun, relaxing happy hour with all your favorite peeps. Don't miss it!

As PubCon gets closer we'll have more information about the location and a place to sign up.

San Diego - December

We'll have more information about this one soon. The event should take place around December 20th.

But what about my city?

Don't worry! We are planning more SEOmoz events. You can stay up-to-date on the location of the moz team on this new fancy looking page linked to below. This calendar not only shows our meetups but also shows what conferences we'll be speaking at and who's speaking and/or attending. It will be updated often, so if you're ever curious where we are and what we're up to, you can find out here:

By the way, I'll actually be at all of the events we have listed above. I look forward to seeing you there!

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Imagine you’re at party with 800 people and you need to tell one specific person that you found her cell phone on the bar. Everyone is talking, music is playing, people keep moving around and so even if you spot the girl you’re looking for, by the time you make your way through the crowd, she’s already moved on. You could try shouting at her from across the room, but you’re not likely to get through. Maybe pass her a note by handing it off to someone six degrees style and hoping it will get to her eventually? Or you could just stand there and maybe she’ll come looking for you.

This is social media marketing in the new millennium and it’s only getting worse. Forrester Research has a new report out called Defeating Social Clutter. It takes a look at the numbers that make up the clutter then gives suggestions for how to work around it.

According to their findings, the average Gen Y user has nearly 500 friends combined on his social networks. Granted many of those are the same people appearing in multiple channels but that doesn’t reduce the clutter. Not when my Facebook is set to update my Twitter which updates my MySpace.

The interesting twist is that most people reported they only check their social networks once every few days. Facebook was listed as the site checked least often. The problem is, of course, the push-down nature of social media. Today’s Tweets push yesterday’s Tweets off the front page and though they didn’t quote the statistics, I imagine the number of people who page back more than twice is very low. As we discussed last month, the timing of your Tweets and posts is important for this very reason. It might be more convenient to update your Facebook at midnight, but by noon the next day, what are the chances that your post will still be showing on your follower’s front page.

Forrester says that all of this clutter makes it even more important that you hitch your wagon to movers and shakers in your niche. When a consumer has 500 social media updates in 24 hours, chances are good that they’ll skim to read those from close friends and family before devoting any time to a brand name they friended in order to get a coupon.

A more novel approach is the work around. Forrester suggests seeking out less cluttered environments such as less popular networks, blogs and forums where you can present your ideas to a smaller but more focused audience. It may seem like it, but Twitter and Facebook aren’t the only gigs in town. Poke around on Google and you’ll find social networks devoted specifically to moms, seniors, writers, gamers, musicians, and book lovers. As with the big boys, be sure to approach these niche groups with honesty and a minimal amount of spam. Trying to get book lovers to review your latest work is one case where asking permission is better than asking forgiveness.

Do you have any thoughts on cutting through the clutter? We’d like to hear them.

Bing will soon become the third general search engine option for all Firefox English language users, behind Google and Yahoo.

In a post, here's what Firefox said of its search options:

Google remains the most popular general search and it will remain as the default search option, unless you change it. We will also continue to include Yahoo! as the second option for general search. Yahoo! has a loyal following and continues to provide a differentiated user experience, even as it integrates the Bing engine for its algorithmic search results. Bing itself offers a user experience that we think users will find valuable, and with its significant rise in popularity over the last year, we will also be including Bing as a general search option for English language users.

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I talked and Facebook listened. How amazing is that? Just the other day I was saying that I had a link I wanted to share but I didn’t want to spam my whole list of Facebook friends when only a few of them would be interested.

Today, I wake up and find that Facebook has solved this problem for me. They have a new version of Groups that allows me (and you and anyone else who wants to) to create a group, invite friends and only post messages to the people in that group.

I know what you’re saying, hey, Cynthia, couldn’t I do that before with the friend labeling system? Well, yes, you could but it was a pain in the neck, wasn’t it? Not at all user friendly but this system is easy-peasy. It’s so easy that it’s already causing a problem.

The new Groups app allows you to add anyone you want to the group and they can add anyone they want to the group and you’re added. No permission asked or needed. In order to get out of a group, you have to actually opt-out. This seems to be a privacy issue. . . but Facebook gets around that by setting the default option on Groups to private. That means that your business will only be shared with a hundred people you didn’t want to friend and not everyone on Facebook.

Groups also has a live chat component which could be very useful to collections of people who need to discuss a project or event. It also has an email option which could become a vehicle for misuse.

From a business standpoint, Groups aren’t much different than what you’re already doing with fan pages. They’re a place to share information devoted to a specific subject and they can be opened up for the world to see. The chat feature is interesting, if you have a fanbase that might make use of it. But the whole point of groups is that it limits information to a select group of members and I can’t see how that would be advantageous to a marketer.

You can read all about Groups right here on Facebook.
What do you think? Is there an advantage to the new Groups feature that I’m not seeing?

Link building just got easier. That's what the crew at Ontolo is promising, as it gets closer to another round of signups for the Ontolo v2 Link Building Toolset on Oct. 12.

Ontolo's link building service crawls, analyzes, and scores up to 15,000 new link prospects each month, analyzing each one against more than 100 factors and aggregating critical link building metrics for each URL, focusing on your most relevant and valuable link prospects.

With the click of a button, you can identify guest post opportunities, donation opportunities, or your industry's most successful, linkable content. Beyond link building, it can even be used for content research and strategy design, competitive analysis, and social media marketing.

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More information has been coming out about Google's big attempt to combine search, cable, broadcast television, the Internet, DVR, music, and apps. Here's a quick overview of what we know about Google TV so far.

Optimizing Websites for Google TV

Will SEOs need to create a Google TV version of their sites? That's a big question as we look over Google's tips on optimizing websites for Google TV. Bigger text and images, easier navigation, and color choices are among their biggest suggestions.

Click to read the rest of this post...

One of the larger issues around the Android platform for mobile has been the payment system. Unlike Apple’s easy to do iTunes pay system for apps, Android users have had to go a few extra steps in order to buy apps. Of course, while it’s not the end of the world, for people who are never satisfied it’s a point of contention.

According to TheStreet Android users are getting close to having a similar experience to pay for apps as Apple users do except it will be done through PayPal

Google has finally enlisted eBay’s PayPal service and is preparing to launch the payment system on its Android Market later this month.

The two Net giants had been moving closer to an agreement in recent weeks. Now, sources familiar with the situation say the deal is all but sealed, with an announcement coming as early as Oct. 26 during the PayPal developers’ conference in San Francisco.

Overall, the quicker Android gets to shake the negative comparisons it garners compared to just how seamless Apple’s systems are, the better off the platform will be. A step like this could go a long way to making that happen.

Whether this turns out to be as advertised, however, is another question.

“Economics” were said to be one of the trickier negotiation points between Google and PayPal as the talks dragged on, so it will be interesting to see if the Android Market checkout process is as smooth as many observers hoped.

Since we are seeing so much more news about Android devices maybe it’s time for us to ask our readers which platform you use. Let us know in the comments sections. Please remember this is not the place for an all out debate about which platform is better. We are just curious as to what our readers are doing for their mobile fix.

I’m a new Android convert (as in just for the past month). What about you?

Posted by Dr. Pete

When you're a small fish in a sea of competitors, getting noticed by search engines is never easy. If you're a car dealer, local restaurant, real estate agent, lawyer, doctor, etc., you're not only competing with hundreds of other businesses just like yours, but when it comes to link-building, everyone is trying to pick the same low-hanging fruit.

Strong content that attracts natural links can really help break the mold of low quality directories, blog comments, and spammy article marketing, but where do you start and how do you stand out? The world only needs so many mortgage calculators. I'd like to offer a few tactics to get you moving (and thinking) in the right direction.

Car Dealers (Tactic: Positive UGC)

Many companies are afraid of user-generated content (UGC). They imagine the worst – negative comments, brand-bashing, customer service horror stories. Although that fear is often overblown, it's easy to sympathize. It is possible, though, to use UGC and still control the message.

Let me illustrate with a story. In the late 90s, my parents bought a Saturn. Back then, Saturn was known for their unique buying experience – when you signed your paperwork, they took your picture, posted it on the wall, and the employees all came out and cheered. It was a little odd, admittedly, but it was definitely a memorable experience.

Why not use that same approach online? Find your brand evangelists - ask your customers to submit photos of themselves with their cars, for example. This type of positive UGC has a number of advantages:

• You'll tend to attract brand loyalists.
• People will link to their content on your site out of vanity.
• You'll create natural testimonials.

Restaurants (Tactic: Positive UGC)

This is another spin on the car dealership idea. If you're a restaurant, you have to deal with reviews. They can really make or break your business, especially now that there are entire companies dedicated to flooding the internet with positive (or negative) reviews. Why not ask for feedback in a way that naturally spins positive? For example, add a feature to your site where you ask people to post pictures of their favorite dish from your restaurant. No one has a bad favorite dish – the haters will naturally exclude themselves. Meanwhile, the brand evangelists will love seeing their photo posted online and will naturally tell their friends.

Real Estate (Tactic: Local Interest)

Real estate websites and even blogs have a tendency to be generic – they talk about why it's time to buy, how to find a decent interest rate, etc. This information, done well, is fine, but it's hard to stand out when you're saying the same things that 1,000 other realtors are saying.

Why not focus on the local angle? Think more broadly than just real estate – talk about the highlights of the neighborhoods you sell in. This could be everything from the best schools and local tourist attractions to talking about your favorite local restaurants. Don't be afraid to get a little personal, and you'll tap into a few advantages:

• You'll show you know and like the neighborhood you sell in.
• Local content will naturally attract local links.
• You'll naturally highlight the reasons to live in your neighborhood.

Lawyers (Tactic: Local Expertise)

Lawyers, like realtors, face the problem of how to say the same things as everyone else and still sound unique. Again, focus on your own niche and the local angle (assuming you're a smaller office). Highlight local stories that show how the law impacts your area – this could be everything from crime stories to civil suits. Discuss these stories in the context of your practice. You could even have fun with it – talk about weird laws in your state or city, for example. The advantages?

• You'll show that you're up to date with current laws and events.
• People will see that you understand how the law impacts them.
• Local interest stories naturally attract local links.

Don't Be Afraid to Get Creative

If there's a theme here, it's that you can't be afraid to start getting creative, even if you think you're in a "boring" industry. Think about what got you into your business in the first place – there's always a story, and the more you put your own spin on content, the more authentic and unique it will naturally become. Say something that no one else is saying, and natural links will create themselves.

"Hundreds of cars" image provided by ShutterStock.

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