Google is the market leader with highest share in the search advertising spend. According to the study by Efficient Frontier, for the second quarter of 2008, Google has 77.4% of US search advertising spend which includes a small percentage of contextual ad spend. When it comes to the non-US search ad market, Google has dominance over the Europe market with more than 90% of the market share and in Japan it is facing a decent competition from yahoo.

• Google dominates US search ad market
Google is dominating the search advertising market in US as it has the highest market share compared to that of its competitors. According to the study, for the second quarter of 2008, Google had 77.4% of search ad spend in US, which also includes 2.8% of contextual ad spend. The other competitors like yahoo had 17.6% with 0.2% of content and Microsoft has 4.8% share of search ad spend. Google is the market leader in US with significantly higher share in the search advertising market.

• Cost-per-click rates for Google are higher than its competitors
Google cost-per-click rates are higher than its competitors, about $0.70 on average, against Microsoft with $0.60 and yahoo around $0.50. Google leads over its competitors though its cost-per-click (CPC) rate has dropped in the past two quarters of 2008. Yahoo also dropped in the two quarters of 2008 whereas Microsoft slightly improved in its CPC rates in the second quarter of 2008.

• Google search ad market out of US
Google also leads search ad market out of US, except in few countries like China, South Korea, Russia & Japan. The market share of Google in the countries like US, Australia, UK and primarily in Europe (excluding UK) is significantly higher than its competitors. Google has dominance over the Europe market with more than 90% of the market share and facing a decent competition in Japan from Yahoo as it is the only major competitor.

Google has sustained its position as the market leader in the search advertising market as it significantly takes lead over its competitors with higher amount of actual earnings and overall search spend. Its dominance is higher in the western countries and is facing a decent competition in the other countries from Yahoo.

http://www.marvist.com is an internet marketing firm providing affordable and professional seo services to increase search engine ranking of the website, pay per click management to help companies to increase online sales and improve their profitability. Marvist was founded in 2005 and has been rapidly growing since then and has clients now in 11 countries including USA, Canada, UK, Spain, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Powerfull

Every single day my inbox is clogged by my readers sending me various emails and burning question in and around Internet and Affiliate Marketing. While I don’t mind helping out a struggling affiliate it is just weird to me that 90% of the questions are the same. Most of the emails are regarding Traffic, yes traffic. To some this might be easy to achieve and it’s a given that some niches give easy allowance to massive traffic surges but most online marketers struggle with this. And unfortunately for them it is not really something you want to be struggling at, cause it is kinda the most important thing to succeeding online.

Now, Really how hard is it to explode your traffic levels and still keep that traffic relatively targeted. To some it is virtually impossible and they have given up long before they have started, but in actual fact it is not difficult at all. Firstly it will depend on you persistence and hard work, without that you may as well give up now. The other dominant factors to increasing traffic include the following:

- The Type of niche you are targeting

- The size of the niche

- The amount of active competition in that niche

- The need for the product or service within that niche

- The cost of the product or service / is it available to everyone or only a select few.

Now if you read the five factors above you will soon realize that there are many more. For now just focus on the one’s above to use and keep note of. This will help guide you into the mind of your visitors and ultimately play a role in you increasing your traffic level to a desired level. So keep the factors in mind but be sure to set yourself a goal that you wish to achieve and then work towards it.

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Best regards,

Ryan

SEO, search engine optimization

One of the biggest mistakes people make online is failing to promote their sites or their offers.

It’s fine to learn the skills of building websites and blogs but sooner or later, one needs to take stock and ask themselves what’s next. Well, “next” is actually the most important aspect of succeeding online and that’s driving traffic to a site.

Free Traffic Generation

Creating a traffic kahuna requires a good deal of skill and a reliable set of tools and strategies. The word kahuna is Hawaiian for medicine man or priest. Coming up with a plan of attack to attract traffic to a website sometimes requires a little therapy or divine intervention.

The truth is however, it’s not really rocket science and all it really requires is some focus and consistency in your business.

Links are the lifeblood of any website. Sure search engine optimization is vitally important but too many webmasters waste countless hours trying to get their SEO right on their site. Things like keyword optimized content and titles, meta tags and H1 tags are important aspects of on page optimization.

But they alone won’t get people coming to your site. Off page SEO in combination with marketing and promotion will attract visitors and get you search engine love. Links are what gives your site credibility within the search engines and gains you traction so you rank higher.

Once upon a time, any type of link was okay and quantity was the key. Not anymore. It’s more about quality links today - on theme links which relate to your sites topic will get you search engine love. Linking to sites with some authority is even better.

Going it alone can work if you have the dedication. However, unless you possess the skills then it will be a “long hard road to row.” Becoming part of a system - a co-op if you like where you can get quality one way links is of utmost importance.

Ideally, becoming part of a membership base where members exchange links through articles and blogs is how you can solve the problem of getting traffic to your sites.

Want to know how to create your own Traffic Kahuna? Learn how to get hundreds of webmasters to send you all the free traffic you can handle whenever you want. Register for Traffic Kahuna today and put your free traffic generation on steroids!

Get high page rank

When is a web hosting company not a web hosting company? When it’s a VAR.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a VAR (value added reseller) - I’ve been one many times in the past, and will likely be again.

It’s just that people typically don’t understand what a web hosting company is - or does - and when it comes to their online business they make some questionable decisions because of it.

For instance…

Recently I was consulting with a client and they asked my opinion of a hosting package their web design firm had offered them. *STOP RIGHT THERE* There’s your first BIG CLUE…

Your web design firm is in the business of designing web sites. Making your web site look a certain way. Sometimes the web design firm may have coders on staff who can program the site to behave a certain way (and coding a webpage is not the same as coding a database application,) and sometimes the web design firm has writers on staff who can make the site read a certain way (and writing your company profile is not the same as writing your primary sales and landing pages…) And don’t even get me started about SEO, Internet marketing and general strategic online business development advice!

But I seriously doubt they have a multi-million dollar environmentally controlled, fire suppression enabled, multi-point redundancy, 24-hour monitored, data center in their back room.

Now THAT’S a hosting center.

Most pretenders err.. most hosting companies are really VARs, and here’s the rub, these pretenders often charge 100 times the actual cost of hosting and deliver 1% of the service package.

Now before I get loads of angry letters from quality hosting VARs I should say that they are not all like this. I do however bring up this huge discrepancy and tell you this tale to illuminate a point that drives me nuts.

Just because someone can code up a web page doesn’t mean you should entrust them with your online business presence and hosting. It certainly doesn’t mean you should trust them with your online marketing, and it especially means you shouldn’t automatically trust them with your online brand reputation either.

These are all important points that require special skills - some companies have the mix, some do not. Do you know which questions to ask and how to tell a Pretender?

I know the web is still a brave new world (as of writing, it’s just over 14 years old!) and you’d be forgiven if you still don’t quite ‘get it’ - that’s why you need to take care and ask more questions and work with a proper web strategist/consultant who’s been around the block a few times.

Remember before focusing my efforts as a corporate web strategist and online marketing expert I was a VP of IT and Consulting and managed multi-million dollar software development projects across most major continents for banks, governments and major manufacturers. Managing upwards of 50 people, I’ve personally built and sold software solutions for over 30 years now, and even pioneered online systems that pre-date the Internet (try creating a TV based hyper linked TeleText system in the mid 80’s… now that’s creative)

Anyhoo… I’m a little off-topic.

The conclusion of my tale was this. I recommended a direct hosting source (one of the major players in this field) and provided their price. The client declined telling me that it was “too cheap” and that they would stay with the web design firm *sigh* So I pointed out the firm was a VAR and in this instance was charging them nearly 100 times over cost for 1% of the service…

Call me crazy, but spending 100 times more than I need seems unnecessary. But that’s just me…

JAMES BURCHILL Shows individuals and companies how to profit from the innovative use of Internet technologies, strategic content and social media marketing. James’ innovative and creative solutions are the select choice for those seeking an advantage, and Jim’s valuable money making, marketing, technology and business advice is published regularly on his website. You can find out more at http://www.JamesBurchill.com/about

Search Engine Marketing

Think differently.

Start by changing the way you think about the word “simple.” Simplicity is not easy. Simplicity is innovative. It is more challenging and takes more discipline than the “kitchen sink” theory of design. If applied correctly to your brand strategy, you can say more with less.

5 key advantages to simplicity in design and messaging.

1. It is easily recognizable.
2. It is memorable.
3. It reduces visual and emotional tension.
4. It is easy to understand.
5. It allows for a direct, coherent, consistent message across all brand channels.

Take advice from the experts.

Marissa Mayer, Google’s director of consumer Web products, sums the importance of design simplicity excellently:

“Google has the functionality of a really complicated Swiss Army knife, but the home page is our way of approaching it closed. It’s simple, it’s elegant, you can slip it in your pocket, but it’s got the great doodad when you need it. A lot of our competitors are like a Swiss Army knife open-and that can be intimidating and occasionally harmful.”

Google stays true to the equation: Robust Product + Simple, Direct Presentation = Success.

Test your brand.

An easy way to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing materials is to sit down and look at them briefly. Skim them. Don’t spend any more time than you would as a consumer looking at someone else’s materials for the first time. Now step away. Read a chapter in a book. Go on a walk. Do something distracting. Then sit down and think about your materials. What do you remember? Is you message clear? Is your design consistent? If you have trouble remembering your colors, focus or message, others certainly will too.

Kristen Friend is the art director at the graphic design company, Luckynine Design studio. As an established graphic, web site, and logo design company, Luckynine has worked with companies of all sizes. To learn more, visit Luckyninedesign.com.

Search Engine Marketing

The first question I always get is, “Is SEO possible to do yourself?” The answer is yes. A different answer than you are likely to get from a so called SEO expert. However, having been there and successfully optimized my own site, I can tell you that it is truly not that hard. To achieve success, there are three basics on which you need to focus. All ‘other’ techniques are either unproven or of marginal value.

Even SEO experts are unsure of which of the ‘other’ techniques actually work . So how do they optimize? The SEO experts add the ‘other’ techniques to the mix while still relying on the basics. And one thing you should know about SEO experts that they themselves admit - they are very reluctant to optimize for highly competed keywords. So do you really need their help?

SEO Optimization Technique One : Keyword / Phrase Inclusion

Keywords are the center of the internet as it stands today. They are the way search engines and internet users find what they are looking for. Therefore, there is no better way to impact your sites or your content’s rank.

Keywords are simply important words and phrases often searched for that need to be included in various elements on your site. Therefore, it is critical that you identify the right ones.

After you have identified the right keywords, it is about maximizing their effect. Maximization comes from how you include your keywords - which we will cover in technique three - as well as including keywords in the proper ratio and grouping.

When it comes to the ratio, keywords need to be repeated more often than other words used within the content. That is, when a search engines crawls the page, these words and phrases need to stand out as occurring more often. However, at the same time, for both readability reasons and to avoid being flagged as a spammer, any given keyword should not exceed 5% of the total words on a page. Further, no page should be optimized for more than two to three keywords and or phrases.

Note: Common phrases such as “and, or, the, like, etc.” are not taken into consideration when a search engine crawls the page.

SEO Optimization Technique Two : Linking

Linking is second to, if not on par with keyword inclusion in terms of influence on search engine rank. The more links into your site, page and content, the higher it will rank. And the more popular and relevant the site from which the link is coming, the higher its influence will be. Therefore when optimizing a site, page or content, the more links you can point toward it from popular and relevant sites, the more impact the links will have.

To build out your link network, there are several options available.

* Build links to different pages on your site from within your own site
* Include an XML site map on your site
* Include your site in directories such as the DMOZ
* Join online communities and include a link to your site in your profile and posts. MySpace, Facebook, Linked In and Ryze would all be examples.
* Strategically place content online in communities, ezines, article directories, etc. Leverage content marketing such as article marketing to its fullest potential.
* Whenever placing a link, be sure to include related keywords in the anchor text . By including keywords in the anchor text, you are increasing the rank of the linked to page for those particular keywords.

SEO Optimization Technique Three : Page Structuring

Page structuring is the third way you can achieve SEO benefits for your site and content. The key elements to focus on are as follows:

* Include keywords in groups. At a minimum, if content is split between pages, be sure keywords are grouped on the same page.
* Be sure to include keywords in all alt text (text descriptions of links, images, etc.). This would include a
* Include keywords in the page title between the