We have all done it. Searched the pages of Google Images to find that perfect picture for… your blog. Well it seems like it may get even easier to find that instant gratification… for your blog. Google has done it again. They have come up with a new way to give you the results you want called VisualRank. The scientists over at Google have designed an algorithm that combines image-recognition software with classic Google ranking.

Image search results are currently determined through basic image tagging. This definitely hinders the results as it relies on webmaster’s content and alt-image tags, and we all know people aren’t perfect. So when you search one thing, you may end up with something completely different, especially when you turn filtering off. But you already knew that didn’t you?

As it stands now Google uses employees to rank the images that they store. There is a team of 150 employees who are using the most popular searches to find images and rank them accordingly. The Google staff estimates that 83% of the results are less relevant images.

With the release of this technology, Image search may become as highly prized as the organic results. So not only will Google require better content for higher ranking websites, but better image relevance and quality too. Better upgrade that 2 megapixel cam to a 12 Mp SLR!

A Google Prototype for a Precision Image Search

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What are the best strategies a website can use to get new subscribers or email leads? Advertising, creating fascinating new content, blogging…these are a few obvious ways. Yet an alternative recently caught my attention recently.

On April 8^th Forbes posted an article titled “America’s Most Miserable Sports Cities.” I know what you are thinking, “Forbes is writing sports articles?” I guess they justify it by explaining that professional sport teams are really money-making corporations. This is true; however, most of their sport articles have nothing to do with any type of financial aspect. Anyway, that’s another blog for another time.

This article created a list based on authors Tom Van Riper’s and Andrew Farrell’s criteria and opinions. Regardless of the fact that the list is opinion based, it is the worst list ever created. The 10 Commandments led to the rationalization of George W. Bush and, as Rage Against the Machine would put it, “killing in the name of”. Yet, Forbes’ list has managed to outdo the chaos that followed the Commandments. In a nutshell the list has Atlanta at the top and Philadelphia and Cleveland low on the list. Being from Cleveland, I, like many others, take pride in being the most miserable loser in the U.S. Naturally, I wanted to blast back at Forbes and its fools, so I went down to the bottom of the online article and clicked the comment button…

And that’s where they got me!

To be able to post a comment one must provide a valid email address. Steamed and ready to unload a bus of hell bound vocabulary, I signed up and typed something which soon faded into a mass of shadows cast by such an awful article. (To view my comment click here.) The article received many comments from miserable people from miserable towns. All negative.

So is it coincidence that not one person agreed with this article? Maybe. It could be that the one who agrees, may not feel as passionately as the person who feels slighted, ergo, no comment. The more likely scenario is that this article was written to anger people. The article makes people fanatical: they sign up, comment, feel used afterwards, get depressed, get fired from their job, start drinking, get a divorce, lose custody of their children, do some things they aren’t proud of for money (things they only did as experiments in college), eventually get help, start a new life, and then blog about it. More or less.

The whole signing into the website to view the entire article and comment idea is a great way to sucker people into giving an email address. Nothing is for free. We pay to comment. The fee is our email address, which can be turned into a sizable profit if properly solicited.

Thank you for the comment. Enjoy the spam.

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Yahoo’s new system, complete with minimum bids in the same vein as Google, has been up and running for the latter half of April. No doubt, if you are running accounts in Yahoo, you have encountered the message that this change has affected you.

I’m not positive whether Yahoo was inspired by Google or whether they made the decision independent of the the big G, however, the timing is certainly coincidental. Yahoo has been running Google AdWords ads with some real success and so it wouldn’t be crazy to think that Yahoo might start to look a little bit more like Google, if only coincidentally. What is interesting, though, is that the Yahoo minimum bid system seems to make a heck of a lot more sense than the Google system which often requires bids of $1.00, $5.00 or even $10.00 in order for a keyword’s ad to go live. So far, I haven’t seen anything that didn’t look at least somewhat reasonable from Yahoo’s system.

Search Engine Land, a personal favorite news source of mine, weighed in on Yahoo’s minimum bid system as it differs from Google’s and which best practices to enact while dealing with this new system. The article is highly informative and thorough and serves as a nice tool for anyone confused by the new order.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure how big of an effect Yahoo’s minimum bidding requirements are going to have on the final search marketing product. It might serve to cut some of the fat in the system (e.g. users that are inattentive to their Yahoo campaigns or users that will bid on anything, provided that they can get $0.10 clicks), or it might just be a way for Yahoo to make more money. What I do applaud, though, is that, at the very least, Yahoo is seemingly making an effort to improve the quality of their user experience, which has always been a hallmark of Google’s success with AdWords.

Yahoo as a company has a lot of work to do in general in order to stay competitive with Google; therefore, just about any news of change is likely good news. It’s refreshing to see that they are embracing rather than ignoring the need for this change.

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If you want to know more about SMX here is a link to their SMX News Feed.

I had a great time the past two days learning more about Social Media and meeting a lot of cool people. This is a much smaller community then most people think. This is likely because some of these larger conferences (like Webmaster World / Pubcon in Las Vegas) attract a lot of ‘wannabes’ who are on the outside of this industry and are often trying to figure out how to grow their own business without hiring a search marketing firm.

What’s nice about SMX is that most attendees are Search Marketers & SEOs or somehow much more closely related to the industry then some of the larger conferences. For example there weren’t guys there who are all about their online auto sites.

Some of the things I learned about more than I had expected to are listed below

1. I even learned more about the strength of lists in blog posts and on Digg.

2. I won’t make a list now, I was just practicing

Yahoo Answers

So, I’ve learned that Yahoo! Answers is a really great place to get traffic from. All you really need to do is know your own industry, then create a profile and start answering questions from the categories that relate to your site (or your client’s site). The longer you are on the site (by answering questions and participating) you will be rewarded with more abilities. I really like this model, just like SeoMOZ allows you to have ‘do follow’ links after you have reached a certain level of participation.

The important thing to understand here is that as you can gain credibility in Yahoo! on your topic, also be sure to give credit to your page. If your answers are voted ‘best answer’ then you receive points that give you more credibility in the community and increase the link love to your sites.

The help section also encourages you to simply ‘Ask’ your question if they don’t help you out with what you need either!

When answering questions, it is encouraged to site your sources, in which you would be best to put something like the following:

Source:
Aaron Kronis / Wpromote
http://www.wpromote.com

After 4 days, the ‘answering’ of posted questions ceases and everything goes into ‘vote’ mode. Most people don’t really care about the questions, they are just looking for answers so you can go in and simply vote for your own answer as the best - your competition will be with the others who answered and want the ‘10 points‘.

Yahoo has a ’scoring’ system where you start with 100 points and after 250 you can then start to click ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ on questions, for example along with more options like being able to ’star’ a question more times then just 10 in one day. You get 2 points for answering, 10 for best answer and -5 to ask a question.

Extra special: from SMX - > Another sneaky tip for all you bloggers and SEO folks out there: In Yahoo! Answers, on the profile below the avatar you will see 3 tabs: Answer, Discover and Vote. Click on vote, look for your own questions and vote on them. Most people don’t remember or know how to do this.

Wikipedia:
It has come to my attention after SMX that the large community of Wikipedia can be an excellent resource for helping out your clients with their link-building efforts. If you find a very old picture on Wikipedia and your client has the same thing for sale and has updated photos that are ‘not going to have licensing issues surrounding their use’ - basically amateur photos - then you may be able to get them into Wikipedia.

This would be you helping Wikipedia grow its image database with newer fresher and more up to date images. You would give up the ‘rights’ to the images, but in exchange for a link when it is referenced on Wikipedia. I’m still researching the numbers on this, however it is amazing how many links you can actually get from this if your image is accepted.

Start learning about this at The Wikimedia Foundation, which consists of volunteers who edit “The World’s largest free online encyclopedia”.

Until next week,

Team SEO

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photo credit: tracy hunter

With all the hype around Web 2.0 and countless small businesses and start-up web sites popping up daily, it’s common place for businesses to desire the most intricate and sophisticated features built for their web sites. We see it happening everyday, where VC firms are pouring in millions of dollars on funding in hopes that their project will take off and become the next social media hit such as Facebook or Myspace. While the plethora of possibilities and features that these web sites carry is endless, it’s important to remember that not all web sites are created equal, not all web sites are created for the same purpose, and that for some: the simpler they are, the better.

What’s The Goal Of Your Web Site?

A lot of businesses nowadays are forgetting that often times simpler is better. Dumb it down, make it so people have to think less, and it may just be good for sales. At the end of the day, the success of an e-commerce web site (for example: a company that sells chocolate online) comes down to of the total number of visitors who came through the site, how many are converting into customers and how much each conversion is costing them. And because most web users just scan web pages instead of reading them, when presented with a disorganized layout, too many options or no specific call to action, these potential customers often become lost and disinterested.

Minimalistic Design

Minimalistic design can go a long way to better clarify the purpose of a business’ web site. Sometimes it’s just not all about adding new content or features to a web site to increase conversions, but taking away from it. Whether a conversion is measured by a lead, sign-up, or sale, a web site can often stand out from the crowd when it’s just simpler and easier to use.

What are you thoughts?

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On April 17th, Google once again prevailed on Wall Street, releasing earnings reports that beat analyst’s estimates with force. Despite growing concern over the impact of the slowing economy on Google’s revenues & reports released by comScore indicating Google’s clicks were down for the fourth quarter of 2007, Google managed to increase revenues over 20% compared to the first quarter of 2007. Since analysts on Wall Street have become obsessed with Google, their success is worthy of brief examination.

Investor fears that online advertising revenues would fall are justified in the sense that advertising is usually one of the first expenses businesses cut out in times of economic woe. In addition, this is the first major economic crisis the engine has faced since its induction. You would think a business facing such a crisis would opt to bring in as much cash as possible. Not so. Instead of milking their advertisers for all they could, Google instituted stricter text ad policies that ensured search results were more relevant for the end user. By doing this, they decreased their potential customer base by barring bogus advertisers using irrelevant (or simply bad) web sites from advertising on their engine. On the surface, this is negative news for investors.

To make things worse, in February of 2008 comScore released a report citing Google’s paid clicks were down for the 4th quarter of 2007. The release successfully scared analysts & investors. Then, comScore came back out and said that the trend had continued into the 1st quarter of ‘08. These two reports combined with fears about the impact of the economy on the engine’s revenues resulted in a 40% drop in Google’s share value from its peak in November 2007. In my humble opinion, these negative numbers only serve to glorify how successful Google really is.

Numbers can be manipulated to to dupe the unsuspecting observer. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say the analysts were duped, I would argue Google knew what it was doing the whole time. Despite losing a share of its customer base, the improvement in search quality allowed them to raise prices on worthy advertisers. In addition, Google’s expansion outside the U.S. has offset potential losses due to the slowdown here at home. As for the decreased number of clicks, a decline in growth does not mean loss. It simply means they weren’t growing ‘as fast’ as they did last quarter. There is a huge difference. While the long term effects of the economy, the DoubleClick acquisition and other affairs are yet to be seen; I think it’s safe to say there is no recession at Google so far.

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Google was just named the world’s top global brand for the second year in a row, topping such recognizable companies such as GE, Coca Cola, McDonald’s and Microsoft.

Google’s success goes without saying, however, when placed alongside such other giants as these, it is all the more impressive that Google has done so well in such a short amount of time.  The other companies on the list, especially those not related to technology, are more than mere household names; they are institutions.  To think that Google was founded less than ten years ago and has risen to such great heights already is astounding.  Just about everyone posited that Google could be “the next Microsoft,” but with it’s brand worth an estimated $16 billion more than Microsoft, it’s a wonder that we aren’t on the lookout for “the next Google” at this point.

As far as I’m concerned, Google’s success is due in large part to its overwhelming investment in its own human capital.  With more employed Ph.D.’s than any other corporation, Google is one of, if not the smartest company in the world.  Although it is a bit cliché to say that a company is only as good as its employees, in Google’s case, it couldn’t be more true.

So, congratulations to Google for their success and for this most recent acknowledgment thereof.  I’m sure we’ll see Wpromote climbing in the ranks soon enough, but give us a break… Google is three years older than we are!

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If you’ve messed around with creating a web page, odds are you’ve used tables. Tables are a great way for someone who is new to web design to start laying out their HTML. I know that’s where I started. While they can get the job done, tables were not designed to be the backbone of web page layout. The table element is meant to be used for displaying tabular data (hence the name). Time to learn some CSS!

What is CSS?

CSS stands for “cascading style sheet.” Think of it like this . . . there are two main properties to your web page. On one hand you have the HTML. Your HTML is responsible for the content of your website and has NOTHING to do with the visual representation. On the other hand you have your CSS file which tells your web browser how to display the content. Check out csszengarden for an excellent visual representation of this idea. Here you can see the work of advanced web designers applying unique CSS files to one common HTML document. Notice how each example contains the exact same content, but is displayed in a vastly different manner through the use of CSS.

Separating content and design is extremely important. One of the most frustrating things on the web is waiting for a web site to load. If I’m browsing the web and find myself stuck loading a page, chances are I close the window and find someplace else to go. So if you want to drive traffic to your site, you want to make it load as quickly as possible. This is where using CSS really shines! Browsers are much quicker at applying CSS properties to an HTML document then reading through HUGE table layouts. CSS files are also cached (stored) on the user’s computer which means it only has to be downloaded once. So if your web site has more than one page that references the same CSS file, load time is almost instantaneous.

Using CSS also addresses the issue of getting listed in search engines. The cleaner and more organized your web page is, the easier it is for search-engines to read and rank your site. If you have completely identical sites, in terms of content, where one is designed using a bulky table-based layout and the other using CSS, search-engines can make a more educated guess as to what the CSS based web page is about, and thus will receive a higher ranking and more search traffic.

Switching over to CSS layouts is a very important step in website optimization. While it can be pretty intimidating at first, it is a giant leap in the right direction. I highly recommend checking out the web tutorials found at Lynda.com to get started. If you’re more advanced with CSS, alistapart.com is a great site to learn more about professional techniques and web standards.

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In general, the Internet and online communities have skyrocketed to success with no plateau in site. Why is it that some online ventures, such as Virtual Trade Shows (VTS), have not been able to ride the Internet’s coattail to success, no matter how hard they try? VTS aren’t even attempting to take over the live shows that currently flourish; they simply want to co-exist with the advantage of being a 24-7-365 resource. Seems like a great addition for exhibitors internet-savvy enough to make a smooth transition, but for others it remains an alien concept to be kept as far away as possible.

The minimal success of VTS is generally attributed to these arguments:

• Loss of face to face interaction
• Inability to touch or see a demonstration of the product
• Lack of technical knowledge

These are the same arguments so many people used to criticize e-commerce and social networking sites when they were starting out. Fault must lie somewhere within this critique because it has been proven wrong previously. People have learned to shop, network and conduct business meetings online; they even prefer it in many cases. If these cons are seemingly invalid, then what’s the problem…?

There are some great advantages to exhibiting and attending a Virtual Trade Show. Besides the fact that they are engaging and intriguing to new users (its like you are playing SimCity, check out Second Life that lets you go so far as to pick out whether want to wear a suit or jeans for your virtual meeting with Google), they are cost efficient and a huge time saver. Detailed reporting is available of exactly what each attendee is doing, your conversations are recorded and you can monitor what other products attendees are interested in. This means exhibitors don’t have to go back to their office and spend hours deciphering scribbled notes about who they talked to. ROI is tracked and marketing is targeted to people in a buying mindset, mirroring the benefits of online advertising. VTS are significantly cheaper than attending a live event, in fact the total cost is typically cheaper than just the shipping cost for a regular show. There are no travel fees, no hotels, and no food/entertainment costs. In addition, virtual shows are not affected by weather, you can talk to more than one person at a time, international attendance is easier and attendees can linger anonymously and take their time learning about a product. In sum, the person spending the money to attend these shows should be a huge supporter. That’s if the amount of traffic and recognition actually rivaled the live events.

So, what needs to happen to make this work? I personally think that the only groups capable of positively impacting this product are the large trade show producers. These producers, such as The Nielsen Company and Reed Exhibitions, control everything in the realm of conventions. Without their support attendees and exhibitors are not going to feel comfortable investing their time and energy in VTS. There are two major roadblocks in getting the major trade show companies to support the combination of their live events with a virtual companion. The first problem is, the advantages that exist for the exhibitors and attendees do not hold true for the producers. Instead they will loose a great deal of profit if people start deciding they can send less people to the live trade shows and spend less on advertising at the shows. Second, large trade show producers are deathly afraid of the Internet. Most of them are years behind where they should be when it comes to their websites and online advertising. If they have a site where you can find the dates, location, a contact, some pictures and a description they are happy. If you can register online and get some sort of newsletter updates they think their website is the best it needs to be. Many of the trade show producers will be completely at the mercy of the VTS developers.

While virtual trade shows generally have not produced a large profit the future is definitely looking brighter, and so it is not time for them to give up yet. After five years of dismal results, the largest VTS company Unisfair, finally boasted a 350% growth in 2007. This month also marks the first acquisition of a VTS. Worldwide Business Research, who produced over 200 live trade shows last year, acquired the company eComXpo, a VTS for e-Commerce marketers.

My prediction:  Virtual Trade Shows will eventually team up with major trade show producers to find a happy medium. 

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World, we’d like to introduce you to Monolingual.

What is Monolingual you ask?

“Monolingual is a program for removing unnecessary language resources from Mac OS X, in order to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space. It requires at least Mac OS X 10.3.9 (Panther) and also works on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).”

It’s a very simple to use, open-source program that Josh has convinced many of us Wpromoters to utilize. It goes through every program you have installed on your system and removes the languages you have requested to be deleted.

Around the office, a few of us have saved anywhere from 200 megabytes to 3.2 gigabytes!

So, if you’re running a little low on space, feel free to give Monolingual a spin!

More Mac Tips:

Leopard’s Hidden Features & Secrets (lifehacker.com)

RAM & Macs (Houston Chronicle)

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