The Click Depot Blog

Archive for the ‘Google Optimization’ Category

Apple, Microsoft and Google inevitably end up locking horns with each other. Apple and Microsoft have been rivals for over 25 years now and it can be said that, for the most, part, Microsoft won the battle of the computer titans. Apple re-invented themselves with their i-vision. ipods, itough, iphone, imac, macbook pro, Etc. and before you knew, Apple was hot again - how many Apple devices do you and your family together have (including old versions that you upgraded)? You might be surprised to see that most families now have more Apple devices than any other hardware manufacturer. But is all that about to change with Google Android and G1? Well, we think YES. And here’s why.

Search is important to Google and we all know that. They are a $100 Billion market-cap company and 95% of that is from search-related revenues. The mobile business is taking off, we know that because in Europe and Asia, which is generally behind the curve on innovation compared to the US, but when it comes to the use of mobile phones, they are way ahead. As US catches up, there is a huge market here that Google will want to tap. Internal sources in Google  bloggers reveal that they are taking this mobile thing VERY seriously. It’s obvious, as people switch to using the mobile phone for more and more of their general internet browsing needs, searches will move to that area and that’s where the money will be as well.

The PC operating system market went to Microsoft, Google wasn’t even born then. But here’s their second chance, and possibly bigger than the first one due to the ready availability of a huge market with limited competition, compared to Microsoft’s challenge of creating a market for their products 20 years ago. This time Google’s biggest competitor is not Microsoft though, it’s Apple!! Yes, iPhones are amazing and are arguably the most advanced cell phones for entertainment purposes out there. Google is releasing the Andriod operating system which takes that to the next level. It packs entertainment features alongside with great search and easy emailing features. Things that most people also want in addition to just pictures and music. They now have it all - the #1 search engine in the world, ($$$) a great mobile operating system (OS) and the G1 phone (Hardware). Sounds like a winning combination to me. Iphones are great, but when search the ‘net on them, you really don’t feel like clicking on ads like you do when searching on the PC. G1 is optimized for Google Search more than any other device.

So, as I saw the new G1 phone advertised on the Google home page and on the Tmobile phone upgrades site, I was forced to think - is this it? Is this going to change everything. If Google ends up capturing a few million people that are G1 fans and can’t stop talking about it and actually start clicking on ads, this could change a lot of things in the search and mobilie advertising market. And we think it will.

So, if you are a small or even large business and like to stay ahead of the curve on markteing, here’s your chance. Invest in mobile and search advertising today..

The big news this weekend seems to be the insider news leak about the possible launch of Google Android on Tmobile handset in September. This source reported a nice story about Google Android.

OK, now, why is that important to you? Here’s why:

1. 3G is just getting to become a huge phenomenon in the US. This is the new generation wireless communication protocol that will make sharing videos and large data files much easier. This has the potential to explode cell phone usage for Internet access. The iPhone already started this trend in a big way earlier this year. Google Android will make it bigger. Other countries in Asia (Japan) and Europe are already into this stuff and US lags behind. But we have the largest volume of consumers and the most amount of online spending and Internet users. If 3G takes off in the US, things can change for marketing firms very quickly.

2. Today, the big change seems to be people moving from using the Yellow Pages to using http://maps.google.com to find businesses. This shift was quite big. People had to learn the use of computers and know the ways of the Internet. Even then, this happened in less than a decade. People already use cell phones and when the same applications such as Google Maps and Google Android will be available on the cell phone, people will transfer much quicker to using cell phones instead of going to their PC’s as much.

3. You can stay ahead of the curve in the following ways.

A. If you have a budget for marketing that you can spend on mobile marketing, then talk to a mobile marketing firm. They can get your ads and brandname on multiple mobile applications.

B. Get yourself listed on Google Maps and other online mapping applications such as Yahoo Maps. MapQuest.com and others. These are getting used on the mobile phone in a big way already.

C. Add a “Send me an SMS” feature on your website. Encourage your website visitors to contact you via sms on your cell phone. http://smseverywhere.com/webmasters.htm. Now, this will have to be done with caution. You might have to keep a separate cell phone line for this purpose alone. I haven’t seen too many people try this but I can see it happening in the near future. Of course, 5-10 years from now, everyone will have cell phones than can handle email very well and sms will slowly become almost extinct or at least slow down in usage. Until then, this might be a good idea to grab the attention of your visitors. Who is more likely to contact you? Someone that just sees a regular contact us form on your website or someone that sees a “conctact me via sms” box and knows that you will receive his message immediately and may even respond to it in the next 30 seconds via sms to his cell phone?

There are many more ways, but I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. In marketing, as in business, staying ahead of the curve is important. Don’t do it after everyone else is doing it. Read the signs and get in early.

1. Simple. Search for the word http on Google. The top 100 pages (or even 1000) pages by page rank appear.
2. Want to know what Google thinks are the 1000 most popular websites in the world? Enter www in your search result and see for yourself!
3. Want to know what google applications are the most popular and which ones aren’t, just enter google
4. Want to search within a site but the damn site does not have a search bar. No problem just search for <keyword> site:yoursite.com. For example, search advertising site:theclickdepot.com and you’ll never again spend valulable time navigating through a site.
5. Want to exclude certain sites from your search results? Go ahead and exclude them with -site. For example, use seo books -site:amazon.com. This will show books from all but amazon.com
6. Want to know who’s linking to you? Just type link:url for example link:theclickdepot.com will show you who links to us. But remember, Google reveals only a fraction of the actual link information with this command. Noone knows why. Yahoo Site Explorer shows much more.

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