Author: Rich Garling

A dedicated public servant, having served in elected office twice and as a lifelong Democratic Party Precinct Committee Person with a business background, all concentrated on organizing resources to work together towards a common goal. Served as an elected official, first on the Dekalb County Board (80-82) and later as a Trustee on the Village of Island Lake Board of Trustees (07-09). I have managed numerous election campaigns for local and State offices. Successful results-driven experience in IT program/project management, focusing on collaborating with multiple businesses work streams defining business process requirements into workable enterprise solutions.

Privacy when on-line

Have there been violations of the privacy trust as stated by Facebook. Yep, most likely. While I don’t like it, it’s better I’m aware of the possibility. So, as in many cases, it’s buyer beware. If you don’t want others to know than use these tools wisely. Think before you click.

I found the new bill before Congress, “Do not track act” introduced in the House of Representatives on Friday by California Democrat Jackie Speier, to be an interesting exercise in government interference . While I firmly believe the government should be setting the rules in many areas, Wall Street comes to mind, I think it is unnecessary on the Internet (except to keep it free and open from the big wigs).

The intent of the bill is to create a system similar to the do not call lists. The do-not-call lists for telephones were needed due to the abuse generated by the telesales companies calling people at all hours, especially during dinner. Products were being developed, like caller ID, to deal with these unwanted calls. But these products had limited success.

But I think the difference when it comes to the Internet is pretty obvious.

I don’t have to look at the ads in the right hand column when I Google for information.

I can ignore the ads that appear in Facebook. I can tell Facebook not to share personal information such as name, numbers, address, etc.

Or better yet, just simply leave them out all together.

As a business I run PPC ads in Google and Facebook upon occasion. I pay for “Keywords” used by those doing the searching or who are using Facebook. My goal is to have my ad appear when someone uses the keywords I bid on. The user, by using the keywords of choice, is expressing an interest in the subject. And since there is no cost to the user to use Google or Facebook, ads is what you get in order to support this free service. Very much like TV used to be…Yes Virginia, TV used to be free.

I don’t get to, nor do I want to, know who you are. Nothing personal, I just want my ad to appear on the right side column when you express an interest in the subject. I just want my services to appear before those interested. Nothing more, nothing less.

How important is the page one ranking position

In other words, one moment Penney was the most visible online destination for living room furniture in the country. The next it was essentially buried.

Likely told in many articles, but this came from a NYT article : “How valuable was that? A study last May by Daniel Ruby of Chitika, an online advertising network of 100,000 sites, found that, on average, 34 percent of Google’s traffic went to the No. 1 result, about twice the percentage that went to No. 2.

The Keyword Estimator at Google puts the number of searches for “dresses” in the United States at 11.1 million a month, an average based on 12 months of data. So for “dresses” alone, Penney may have been attracting roughly 3.8 million visits every month it showed up as No. 1. Exactly how many of those visits translate into sales, and the size of each sale, only Penney would know.”

The article talked about the amount of traffic JC Penney garnered from gaming the system by using a link building scheme. That scheme artificially gave JC Penney a number one rank on the first page in searches conducted during the recent holidays. 3.8 million visits per month for 3 months is a lot of visits.

Google reaction, according to the article:

“On Wednesday evening, Google began what it calls a “manual action” against Penney, essentially demotions specifically aimed at the company.

At 7 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, J. C. Penney was still the No. 1 result for “Samsonite carry on luggage.”

Two hours later, it was at No. 71.

At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Penney was No. 1 in searches for “living room furniture.”

By 9 p.m., it had sunk to No. 68.

In other words, one moment Penney was the most visible online destination for living room furniture in the country.

The next it was essentially buried.”

Google would do best to preserve the integrity of their search algorithm since it appears they may have been looking the other way during the holidays due to the enormous sums spent by JC Penney on paid search ads. I see that the EU is looking into possible anti-trusts issues with Google.

Any decent Internet Marketer doesn’t need to resort to such tactics like the one Penney used. A good market strategy that includes honestly working the system should be able to put you on page one. You just need to work it.

How’s that keyword list working for you?

When I sit down with a potential customer to discuss market strategies we get to the topic of keyword research.

And I run into a number who think that because they’re in a particular business, they know all of the keywords someone would use to find them on the web.

And, of course, they use these words in describing their business.

Some of these words may actually be good words. But they don’t know because they used the SWAG method to determine their list.

SWAG, for those not in the know…Scientific Wild Ass Guess…

…Because these websites still get little to no traffic.

When it comes to keywords, there are plenty of keywords that have
tons of traffic…

…But having traffic isn’t enough if you want to run a PROFITABLE web-site….

…or are they tire-kickers who will ask a lot of questions, expect a lot of free stuff, and then leave not spending a dime with you?

Your marketing strategy needs to target the buying customers ready to spend and make you money – not the tire-kickers who cost you money.

Unless you’re targeting buyers instead of “tire-kickers”, all of your SEO efforts and thus your market strategy, will be completely wasted on attracting worthless visitors who never buy.

Hello world!

Making the Internet work for you.

Just a short piece on me…after all it is my blog. I own a small marketing firm, Yellowbird Marketing Solutions , located in the Chicagoland area. With Mike, my business partner, we specialize in integrated marketing strategies concentrating in Internet marketing for small to medium size businesses. Our goal is to ensure that small businesses get off on the right foot when first entering the Internet marketplace.

We have seen many examples out there of companies that have a really pretty web site, but because they didn’t pay attention to their message, didn’t use SEO, have no other presence on the web to speak of, they get no traffic. They’re frustrated because there is soooo much to know. All these small business owners want to do is to run their businesses.

The aim of this blog is to offer advice, ideas and solutions on how to make the Internet work better for all of us. I invite folks to join the discussion, respond and engage in the conversation so we can learn together and make the Internet work for all of us.