SnapHawk Blog

Late last month, Mozilla revealed a new interface feature for Firefox called “Tab Sets” (formerly called “Tab Candy”)  that is poised to revolutionize and organize the way you browse the Web.  Tab Sets allow users to organize their tabs into separate spaces, or sets, and gives a full window view of their layout.  This new feature will be available within Firefox 4 Beta 4, to be released on August 23.  With Internet Explorer 9 and Chrome 6 set to be released soon, this feature could set Firefox apart from the competition.

Over the past few days, I have had the chance to play around and experiment with Tab Sets.  So far, my impression has been overwhelmingly positive. I have been known to have up to 30 tabs open at one time in the same window.  Some might call me a tab addict.  I often google something, open search results in new tabs, browse a little, and then think of something else to google.  Often I am hesitant to close a tab because I’m not sure if I’ll need to come back to it.  The result is a bunch of tabs crammed on the small strip at the top of the browser.  With Tab Sets, I don’t have to worry about the number of pages I have open, because I can now organize the tabs into separate sets.

A lot can be learned from successful author, marketer and blogger, Seth Godin.  One of Godin’s key points throughout his written work and in his blog post topics is that the best way to market a product is to generate buzz.  Often times this buzz is generated through word-of-mouth where friends spread the word to other friends, inherently building a trust factor into the marketing surrounding an idea or consumer good.

Marketing and advertising have traditionally been known to interrupt us during activities we would prefer to do more than watch an ad.  Commercials on TV, pop-up ads on the Internet, and distracting billboards on the highway all tend to get in the way of our everyday lives, leading us to ignore and disregard them at any opportunity.

One of the crucial fundamentals to Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is implementing an effective strategy for optimizing your keywords.  An effective keyword strategy will help your Web site appear near the top of the results page when your potential customers are searching for a product or service that you can provide.  Here are five basic keyword strategies that will have a huge impact in helping potential customers find your Web site when they need to.

1)    Use Google’s Keyword Tool. This tool allows you to analyze competition and get an idea of the cost-per-click (CPC).  It also gives you the opportunity to find highly-searched keywords or phrases that have little competition.

In the past year or so, the world of gadgets, devices and consumer technology products has expanded and astonished shoppers around the world. Time and time again we learn that technology keeps advancing faster and doing more exciting things than ever.  Here’s a quick look at the coolest, most revolutionary products to hit the market in recent memory:

Smartphones that are even smarter. We all know it: smartphones have been on the market for a while now.  But there’s no doubt their presence is growing, and they’re getting more advanced every day.  Touch screens are becoming the norm, and there are over 70,000 “apps” available in the Android Market and 200,000 available in Apple’s App Store which can do pretty much anything you could want or imagine (within reason).  Now that 23% of all mobile subscribers have a smartphone, people are using these devices more and more for Internet searching and browsing.  And even though Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android are getting most of the buzz, RIM’s BlackBerry is still the U.S. market leader.  The growth of the market size and fierce competition leave us with no doubt that smartphones will be hot gadgets for a long time.

There’s a quote by Czech author Milan Kundera that I’m fond of.  He states, “Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.”  While this assertion is easier said than done, it’s certainly a powerful idea that can help us understand what it is that generates customers for a business.  To delve a little deeper, let’s look at some examples of companies that truly take this idea to heart.

To start with, innovation is what moves businesses forward.  If you don’t innovate, you’ll get left in the dust.  Google has made a living off coming up with the newest, coolest technology that consistently meets its customers’ needs.  Apple, too, is infamous for coming out with innovative, high-tech products so sleek and user-friendly that some people go fanatic over them.  On the other hand, Blockbuster is a business which is failing because of its inability to innovate.  Once the leading video rental store in the country, Blockbuster failed to adapt to new technology, and as a result, has seriously struggled to compete with newer companies such as Netflix and Redbox.  Now Blockbuster is close to bankruptcy.

Think how your behavior has changed. Looking up a telephone number... Yellow Pages, online search, or mobile phone? The Yellow Pages hard copy is significantly smaller than it was even 2 years ago. Need information about a customer or a competitor. Where do you go? Shopping for a product or service. Where do you go?

The shift has happened from offline marketing to online marketing. Newspapers, television, radio and magazines have lost substantial segments of their audiences. Consumers and businesses have shifted their behavior from traditional offline to online and this shift will continue at a rapid pace...

As more and more companies continue to migrate to the Internet, many feel the need to increase their digital presence.  One common method to achieve this is through Search Engine Marketing (SEM).  Companies like Google make it seem relatively easy to start and run a campaign internally, but truly running an efficient campaign takes a high degree of knowledge and understanding that your internal employees might not have.  Below are five reasons why it’s better to have professionals run your SEM campaign.

1)    SEM campaigns require constant monitoring. Running a campaign is a time-consuming job.  Marketers have to constantly be on the lookout for what works and what fails, and make changes accordingly. To truly be effective, a SEM campaign has to be dynamic. Constant monitoring should include continuously bidding for keywords to market your Web site most effectively and cost-efficiently.

Ever since Google began dominating the search engine market, many up-and-coming search engines have come and gone.  But as far as we can remember, none have stormed the market with as much vigor as Microsoft’s Bing has in this past year.  In fact, Bing’s driving force seems largely to compete with Google to be the world’s largest and most popular search engine—a bold move to say the least.

Right from the get-go, Microsoft made clear intentions it wanted to make a huge push in the search engine market when it decided to rebrand its current Live Search.  On June 1, 2009, Microsoft launched Bing, and announced that they would spend between $80 million and $100 million on a marketing campaign for its latest search engine.  So far it seems to have been a fairly successful strategy, as Bing grew its US search engine market share to 13%, putting it in 3rd place just slightly behind Yahoo!.  With the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal already finalized and in transition, Bing will soon power Yahoo! Search making it, at last, a viable competitor with Google.  That would give Bing a 26% market share compared to Google’s 65%, though with Bing’s current pace of growth, a market share of 33% is very possible in the near future.  Bing’s growing market share is especially important to Search Engine Marketing (SEM) professionals, as a competitive market may mean lower prices for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising, leading to a greater number of businesses adding SEM to their advertising model.

When someone clicks your ad on Google, you only have a few precious seconds before he or she hits that back button and continues searching elsewhere.  To ensure that web-surfers stay on your website rather than go to your competitors, your landing page has to be engaging, simple, and easy to navigate.  Below are some quick tips to help ensure that surfers will be converted into customers.

1)    Fulfill your ad promise – An ad is like a promise.  If the information the user expected when he or she clicked your ad isn’t present, they are going to feel frustrated and deceived, and quickly navigate away from your site.

Have you ever thought about the way your office space motivates workers, promotes their creativity, or increases productivity? Twitter reinforces their bird-centric branding with designs like the one at left, and we’ve all heard of extraordinary work facilities like the GooglePlex, Facebook’s HQ, or Pixar’s campus which have revolutionized the definition for “cubicle.” Now game rooms, cafeterias, work out centers, colorful paint and super-shiny and sleek furniture are part of the mix. And don’t forget Red Bull London’s office with an enormous slide for traveling between floors. Now that’s introducing a playful vibe into the workplace!

Talk about taking branding to a whole new level. Do you think your mind would gravitate more strongly toward your company’s unique qualities, vision and overall marketing strategy if you were surrounded by physical reminders throughout your day?

Perhaps you’re not ready to make the plunge toward a totally-futuristic office design, but you want to incorporate something a little new and funky. Check out these wild and off the wall products for introducing a little zaniness into your space. You never know: it may spark more imagination than you expect!

If you need an example of how to perfectly integrate social media and viral marketing into your business’s marketing campaign, look no further than Old Spice.  If you haven’t seen the new hilarious Old Spice Body Wash commercials, you should check them out right now.

What’s most impressive about the campaign isn’t how humorous or unique its ads are, but rather how quickly it generated huge viral buzz stemming from Old Spice going out of its way to interact with fans all over the Internet.  On July 14, Isaiah Mustafa, the Old Spice guy himself, replied to comments and questions on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks via personalized YouTube videos.  Within 24 hours there were 181 reply videos posted on YouTube, producing over 6 million views.

You could have the best Web site in the world, but if people can’t find it, no one will see it.  The art of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves tweaking your site so search engines like Google display yours higher than others on the results page, making consumers more likely to go to your page.  One of Google’s best kept secrets is how exactly they determine which pages get displayed first, but certain proven changes will undoubtedly help your site.  Below are five guidelines to begin optimizing your webpage.

The analytic capability now possible for measuring online behavior is astounding, and it’s only going to get better.  Amazingly, we are only in the infancy period of what is actually going to be feasible with website analytics in the future.  Even now, analytics enables smart business decisions and advertising that is more relevant, targeted, and cost efficient than anything in marketing history.  With all of the powerful tools available, though, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the amount of data that’s out there. 

Mark Jeffery’s Data-Driven Marketing gives techniques to simplify this abundant data with 15 metrics.  Five of these easy-to-understand metrics are directly related to search engine marketing (SEM), and can help you determine which strategies are effective and which are allowing you to lose money.  Of course there are other metrics out there, but Jeffery’s are important to consider in the ongoing evolution of website analytics, and are relatively simple and easy to apply.   Below is a brief overview of how each metric can work for you.

OK, I’ll admit it:  It’s a little late to be writing about Twitter’s growth, but the site’s incredibly fast evolution still has me intrigued.  Twitter’s explosive user growth took place way back in early 2009, but Twitter activity didn’t boom until mid-2009 and well into 2010 when the number of tweets per day skyrocketed from around 2 million to 50 million.  Since tweets, which are small text-based posts, are the biggest indicator of the site’s activity, this showed that Twitter is still growing extremely rapidly.

So what makes this relatively simple social networking and microblogging website so popular?  And just how has the site progressed from reaching a somewhat niche, obsessive audience to a more mainstream pop-culture savvy population? I mean, I’ve met a lot of people – frequent social media users and technophobes alike – whose first response to my explanation of the Twitterverse results in a dumbfounded look and a subsequent puzzled, “Huh? I don’t get it.”

Whether you’re new to SEO or you’ve been dealing white-hat strategy for awhile now, you’re probably curious about where online marketing is headed. Here’s a quick look at some emerging trends and predictions for what’s to come:
•    Social expansion. “Social media optimization” is already a hot buzz word in the online world, and it’s only going to get bigger as we move toward the future. Not only will you need to know how to publish a first-rate Web site, but you’ll want to build skills for developing viral Twitter campaigns, gaining Facebook friends, creating popular YouTube channels, crafting killer mobile apps, and writing expert blog posts. Get ready to blend your expertise in new ways, but also to face the challenge of dividing your skill sets appropriately between different buckets. Optimization is not the same as marketing, which is not the same as analytics, after all. And as one blogger has admitted, not only must social media experts be ready to deliver great content across a variety of channels, but that content should be portable – meaning that video files, PDFs, and audio files are available for convenience and speed to any visitor. The Future Buzz has a great graphic on how SEO and social media empower each other cyclically: check it out here.

Any time Google introduces a new service, or even announces its plans to do so, a familiar echo is heard by Internet users and industry experts across the globe: “Google is taking over the world.”

Of course very few people actually think Google is trying to control the world, but it seems very clear that they have plans to expand their business into virtually every market on the Internet (and then some!).

All businesses need search engine optimization (SEO), whether they are large financial corporations, chain restaurants, or local yoga studios. In fact, whether you are rolling out your mat or rolling out your new marketing campaign, some of your strategies could use a little overlap.

•    You want to be flexible. Successful SEO tactics should incorporate a plan that allows adaptable Web page design and malleable site structure, so that quick changes can be made to your layout, image settings, and general content as your company grows and expands. You want to shape your site to fit client needs and readers’ attention. What’s more, you want to be open-minded about incorporating the results you discover from tracking tools such as Google Analytics into your pages. Your site, like your company’s model, strategies, and human-driven potential, should remain a flexible entity. Just ask any yogi you know: he or she didn’t learn to pull off a stable headstand or a stellar scorpion pose by sitting around on the couch; stretching, not stagnancy, proved to be the key!

In February 2010. the U.S. Department of Justice and European Commission approved the partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo! announced in July 2009 to consolidate their search engines into a single powerhouse that will potentially rival Google.  According to the agreement, Microsoft’s Bing will now serve as the search engine on every Yahoo! site.  Additionally, Microsoft will take charge of all paid ads while Yahoo! will regulate sales support for high volume advertisers.  So what does this mean to those in the search engine marketing business?

Essentially, if this partnership means Microsoft and Yahoo! can better compete with Google, then it will ideally mean lower prices for online advertisers across the Web.  Considering Google currently receives 65% of search engine queries, compared to Microsoft’s 17% and Yahoo’s 11%, this new partnership could start to chip away at Google’s overwhelming dominance.  If that starts to happen, Google will inevitably have to lower their paid-ad prices, making the clients of search-engine marketing agencies around the world ecstatic.

Developing business partnerships or strategic alliances traditionally brings to mind mounds of paperwork, attorneys, and long legal documents. Also, the belief that these alliances could somehow limit flexibility can scare businesses away from developing these partnerships. However, by slamming the door on this opportunity, your firm could be missing out on a significant platform to grow your business and provide value for your clients.

Partnerships, at their most basic level, are simply a business-to-business collaboration and are only as complicated as you make them. If your business does not have a budget for intensive advertising or media campaigns, relying on free PR such as customer referrals from partnerships is a key channel for incremental business. According to the “Small Business Notes” website, companies in partnerships report that at much as 18 percent of their revenues come from their alliances...

Social Media Marketing has become one of the hottest buzzwords in the online marketing area. Though many companies have already started to provide social media services, few fully understand the complexities and impact of viral marketing or successful social media campaigns.

Marketers’ interest and involvement with Social Media Marketing are growing rapidly and offer a innovative opportunity for companies seeking to expand their online presence and brand awareness capabilities. To optimize your Search Engine Marketing strategy, you should consider Social Media Marketing a great chance to build a universal, effective, and powerful relationship with your clients using various non-text digital assets traditionally associated with current search engine marketing campaigns. In other words, use integrated marketing...