Brand-Yourself.com Platform
Not sure how to market your services online? Brand-Yourself.com is here to help. The company uses a 4-step process to help folks promote themselves - and their services - online:
1. Build
2. Optimize
3. Promote
4. Monitor
Plus, the service features customized tools to help you track your progress through each step. Looks kind of cool!
While you’re at it, check out Jacob Share’s 50 tips for branding yourself online.
I just came across this excellent blog about pimping your office. Your office may have to have some of the conventional office things in it (a desk, chair, storage unit), but it doesn’t have to look drab. Check this blog out for some home office decorating tips that could boost your creativity and morale.
IBM’s newest product for the Web makes it easier than ever for businesses to analyze just about anything. BigSheets provides “broader data management - not just database management,” according to IBM.
Here are a few of the benefits of using BigSheets, according to IBM:
Check out this BigSheets video for more info.
A new tool by self-publishing site FastPencil allows thought leaders to write books - without actually writing them. The company’s Thought Leadership program helps thought leaders, such as CEOs and business leaders, turn their ideas into books by ghostwriting the books for the thought leaders.
Here’s what FastPencil offers:
The self-publishing services are free up front, but the company takes a fee from the sales of the books.
CNNMoney reported today that the Yahoo! share of online searches is sharply declining. The company’s search market share fell from 18% in October to 17.5% in November, according to the monthly comScore report.
The November figure is the lowest share ever recorded for Yahoo!
Bing, however, appears to be doing quite well; Miscrosoft’s newest search engine gained 0.4 points to cover 10.3% of online searches in November. Google is still the leading search engine, owning a solid 65.6% of the market, which is an increase of 0.9 point since July.
What the Microhoo?
With Microsoft’s Bing success, one wonders why Microsoft forged a 10-year deal with Yahoo! to combine search engine efforts. The joint venture, called Microhoo, was developed to combine the market shares of Yahoo! and Bing together to give the new Microhoo a 28% stake in online searches. Under the terms of the coupling, Yahoo! would be powered by Microsoft’s search engine. In exchange, Microsoft would give Yahoo! 88% of the revenue gained from searches on Yahoo! sites. Read the rest of this entry »
Ever have a burning desire to know what people are searching for online when you’re out and about away from your home computer? If so, then there’s good news for you: a new iPhone app is available to help you stay on top of real-time Web search stats while you’re on the go.
SearchTrends is a free iPhone app from Little Red Bike Media that shows real-time search trends for the top search engines: Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and yes, even Twitter.
Check out this mini review of SearchTrends by Tech Crunch’s Daniel Brusilovsky, which I came across while browsing one of my favorite futurist Web sites, Kirzweilai.net (highly recommended for folks like me who like to stay on top of scientific and technological developments and trends.
Web writer can use this tool (and others like it) to uncover some of the most popular and trendy search terms for, say, news articles that we publish online. Also, it’s helpful to keep an eye on what keywords and keyword phrases people are searching for to get insight into the specific words people use to communicate what they’re looking for with search engines.
And in case you were wondering how Google stays on top of search terms, check out this display at their Mountain View headquarters. I’d like one of these for my office, please!
One of the most important things for Web writers and online marketers to do is (shocker) TEST their email marketing campaigns. With the free tools that come along with today’s email marketing tools, there’s no excuse for not testing email marketing campaigns.
Folks running email marketing campaigns should know:
CNN.com published an article today that addressed the now-infamous Michelle Obama photo in which she has been Photoshopped to resemble an ape. According to the article, some experts believe that Google may have tweaked its algorithm after discovering that the offensive image climbed in search engine results.
“When [analgorithm] doesn’t do what they want it to do, they go back and start tweaking things,” said Danny Sullivan, a search-engine guru who runs Search Engine Land. “Long term, you look at how they got there. When you search for Michelle Obama, do you really think that kind of image is one of the most popular things about her on the Internet? I don’t think so.”
Google already has an automated tool that prevents Internet users from “Google Bombing” - or pulling together to force a specific result (ie: the epic “miserable failure” = George Bush episode of 2003 and the 2007 effort by Stephen Colbert fan to return Stephen Colbert’s bio when searchers Google “greatest living American.”). Read the rest of this entry »
