The one-hour webinar touched on the importance of ranking and visibility on search engines and the steps to increasing search engine ranking through the process of search engine optimization or SEO. “The Internet is the number one source of information for today’s consumer. Having a strong online presence is a must for any business,” explains Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS CEO and President. “Unfortunately, many business owners don’t understand the complexity of SEO and tend to ignore it altogether. It’s certainly not an easy concept to grasp. It requires dedication and a clear understanding of all the components that affect a website’s search engine ranking,” shares Thimothy.

The webinar attracted printing companies from across the country interested in learning how to make their business websites more prominent on the Internet. The presentation, aptly entitled “Keyword is King: The What, Why and How of Search Engine Optimization” gave a general overview of what search engine optimization is all about. Topics included capitalizing on search engine data to drive SEO strategy and improve rankings and attaining first page rankings through on-site and off-site optimization techniques.

While the presentation offered an overwhelming amount of material to anyone unfamiliar with SEO, it also provided easy actionable steps to take to get started on optimizing a website for better search engine ranking. “We’ve been doing SEO for a very long time. We know it’s not easy to do. Our goal was to provide attendees with a basic understanding of what SEO entails, but also, how they themselves can contribute to improving the SEO of their own website,” explains Thimothy.

The webinar also touched on creating an integrated online marketing strategy by combining SEO and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for optimal results. “It’s the best of both worlds. Combining both SEO and PPC means you get powerful visibility in a short period of time,” says Thimothy.

OneIMS hopes to continue offering educational webinars for businesses in all industries. “We want to educate business owners about marketing innovations to help them grow. That’s our priority as a marketing company – finding solutions for business to grow,” says Thimothy.

While many companies exclusively position their campaigns with Google, utilizing the organization’s popular Adwords software, many businesses are also noticing the potential of other search engine advertising platforms such as Bing. Bing has steadily increased its market share in this area for many years and is fast becoming a force to be reckoned with. As such, the PPC team at MarketTarget has announced its intention to offer Bing PPC management options from early 2012 alongside its current wide range of paid search services.

David Wiedmaier, the SEO agency’s leading Pay Per Click specialist, feels that companies shouldn’t be put off by the fact that Bing is largely unexplored territory for many marketers.

“By investing in the platform sooner rather than later, businesses will be exposing their brand to an expanding audience and are likely to gain an edge over their competitors, as many rival companies may not have tapped into Bing’s potential yet”, explains Wiedmaier.

MarketTarget’s team of experts is quick to stress that companies can cost-effectively run campaigns with Google and Bing simultaneously, no matter what their level of experience with the programs. All businesses approaching MarketTarget for any related PPC management service should be aware that the entire team behind this division of the company is professionally qualified, possessing Google Analytics and Adwords accreditations alongside years of experience of running similar search campaigns.

All marketers interested in Bing Pay Per Click management are invited to get in touch with MarketTarget for more information.

About MarketTarget
Since 2009, MarketTarget has been a leading provider of SEO and Search Engine Marketing services. As a full service San Diego SEO services firm, MarketTarget also offers full service web marketing, SEO consulting services and custom SEO training options for its clients. What makes MarketTarget unique involves several key factors: Personal Service, Reasonable Costs & ROI Focus. MarketTarget offers many great free SEO resources, including SEO white papers and a helpful SEO Newsletter.

Source: www.markettarget.com

“Kenshoo Local is exactly what we need to serve our clients more efficiently and grow our paid search offering,” said Maxime Baffert, Directeur Général at Publicis Webformance. “Kenshoo Local’s automated technology solutions will help our team get campaigns up faster and the advanced algorithms will help us meet each client’s specific goals. Without Kenshoo Local, we would not be able to scale our business as effectively.”

Kenshoo Local was built specifically for companies managing large volumes of small/medium enterprises (SME), stores, dealers, franchises, or individual locations. Built upon the Kenshoo Enterprise platform used by eight of the top ten global agency networks, Kenshoo Local is the first to offer capabilities that simplify account creation and enable mass management of hundreds or thousands of geo-targeted campaigns so that Publicis Webformance can manage more clients effectively and profitably.

Publicis Webformance will take advantage of the Kenshoo Local’s objective management and budget management solutions to manage and optimize the campaigns of its clients, providing them with the highest standard of quality.

“We’re very excited about the partnership with Publicis Webformance,” said Sivan Metzger, General Manager at Kenshoo Local. “More and more, the SME market is turning to the Internet as a growth channel and Publicis Webformance has carved out a very strong position and turnkey solution. Armed with Kenshoo Local, the Publicis Webformance team will be able to do more for its clients in less time.”

About Kenshoo
Kenshoo is a digital marketing software company that engineers technology solutions for online advertising. Kenshoo’s global platform delivers the control, automation and results needed to make better investments across search, social, and display campaigns. Advertisers, agencies and marketing providers use Kenshoo EnterpriseTM, Kenshoo SocialTM, and Kenshoo LocalTM to direct more than $15 billion in annual sales revenue. Kenshoo powers five of the top ten retailers in the world and eight of the ten largest ad agency networks. With campaigns running in more than 100 countries, Kenshoo customers include Barnes & Noble, CareerBuilder, Facebook, Havas Digital, Hitwise, iREP, John Lewis, LendingTree, Omnicom Media Group, Sears, Starcom MediaVest Group, Travelocity, Walgreens, and Zappos. Kenshoo has ten international offices and is backed by Sequoia Capital and Arts Alliance. Please visit www.Kenshoo.com for more information.

About Publicis Webformance
Publicis Webformance’s mission is to bring the best of digital communication to SMBs and professionals. Based in Lyon, it provides website creation services and paid search campaign management for its clients. Publicis Webformance is a subsidiary of Publicis Groupe, the 3rd largest communication company worldwide and leader in digital communication.

Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. hit $7.3 billion for the first quarter of 2011, representing a 23 percent increase over the same period in 2010, according to figures released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). This marks the highest first-quarter revenue level ever for the industry and a significant increase over last year’s first-quarter revenue level, which had been the highest on record to date.

© 2011 PwC. All rights reserved. “PwC” and “PwC US” refer to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, a Delaware limited liability partnership, which is a member firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, each member firm of which is a separate and independent legal entity.

Yodle’s business (not local search) relies on the lack of knowledge of their customers which are predominantly SMBs. It’s not to say that they have succeeded in helping many small businesses but my take is that we should employ better solutions and tactics for SMBs as they are the backbone of the US economy. In the long term, a customer centric solution will provide Yodle improved brand satisfaction and higher margins. Also, for god sakes, to Yodle execs please shift commissions from just acquisition (revenue) and tie it to margins which would force a focus on quality, acquisition and retention. Let’s hope Yodle listens to this bloggers call or has shifted already to be on the customer satisfaction front through quality, innovation, content and technology. By the way, having scoured there NYC offices, and meeting a few folks, I don’t recall ever meeting true online marketers? Hmmm!

Here are a few relatively old feedback from various folks on the web:

Yodle, ReachLocal, Yext – Scams or Just Hard To Please Everybody?
Lawyerist.com: Yodle Takes the Hard Sell to a New Level
DavidPirek.com: Is Yodle a scam?

Also a good attempt to improve search reputation by the Yodle which may have been outsourced: Yodle Reviews.

Speaking of small businesses, I’d love to hear from you folks. Have you used Yodle or any other local search provider? What has been your experience? How have they succeeded? How have they not?

Yodle, a leader in local online marketing, announced it has completed a transaction to acquire ProfitFuel, Inc. ProfitFuel, based in Austin, TX, is the largest and fastest growing provider of local search engine optimization (SEO) services to small businesses across the United States. With over 11,000 clients, ProfitFuel has achieved breakout growth serving small businesses that have a moderate marketing budget. Outrank, the company’s main service, is designed to generate inbound phone calls and emails cost effectively by delivering prominent rankings on top search engines for clients.

“ProfitFuel’s dedication to customer results and sales excellence made it a natural fit with Yodle. I look forward to bringing Yodle’s expanded suite of SEM, SEO, Social and Display marketing products to market more quickly in collaboration with ProfitFuel’s world class team.”

Historically, Yodle has focused its local online marketing services on small business advertisers that typically spend larger budgets of $1,000+ monthly and national brand advertisers; Franchise, Multi-location, and Manufacturer/Dealer organizations that advertise locally across hundreds of locations. With the acquisition of ProfitFuel, Yodle now adds a product and a sales force capable of serving a much broader set of clients who have smaller marketing budgets, but who still want the accountability of measuring their marketing performance.

“With ProfitFuel, Yodle is doubling down on its approach of providing a clear ROI to the local advertiser, delivered through a combined 450 person sales and client service team,” said Yodle CEO Court Cunningham. “ProfitFuel’s dedication to customer results and sales excellence made it a natural fit with Yodle. I look forward to bringing Yodle’s expanded suite of SEM, SEO, Social and Display marketing products to market more quickly in collaboration with ProfitFuel’s world class team.”

David Rubin, previously CEO of ProfitFuel, will join Yodle as SVP of Sales. Mr. Rubin has a proven 20 year track record as a successful CEO and sales leader in the technology space. Prior to ProfitFuel, Mr. Rubin was founder and CEO of HomeCity, an online real estate brokerage that pioneered utilizing web-based content to acquire clients. Before founding HomeCity, David held leadership positions at various companies including Intraware as Vice President of New Services Development, BITSource as founder and CEO and Computize as National Sales Director.

“We felt Yodle was the perfect choice to maximize our future potential for our clients, employees and shareholders,” said Mr. Rubin. “We spoke to many companies in the industry and felt that Yodle offered the best set of products, highest caliber talent and the most comprehensive vision to outperform the competition and transform this industry for many years to come.”

Founded in 2000, ProfitFuel has 220 employees and is consistently recognized as one of the best places to work by multiple sources, including Austin Business Journal and Texas Monthly. Yodle will now boast a 300-person sales force and many more talented staffers across marketing operations, client services and corporate departments.

Yodle plans to grow ProfitFuel’s Austin, TX office, making it a major hub, and to fully integrate the company’s infrastructure and technology by year’s end.

About Yodle
Yodle, a leader in local online marketing and named #35 on the INC 500 List of fastest growing private companies in the U.S., connects thousands of local businesses with consumers in a process so simple and cost-effective that business owners can’t imagine any other way to advertise. Yodle has developed an integrated approach to signing up and serving local businesses that are transitioning their marketing budgets online. Yodle is headquartered in New York, NY.

Source: Yodle

The April 2011 qSearch data reflect the impact of Yahoo! Search Direct, Yahoo!’s new feature that delivers search results in real-time while users type their query. Yahoo! Search Direct was available only on Yahoo! U.S. Web Search for the month of April.

U.S. Explicit Core Search – Market Share

Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in April with 65.4 percent market share, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 15.9 percent (up 0.2 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 14.1 percent (up 0.2 percentage points). Ask Network accounted for 3.0 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.5 percent.

More than 16.2 billion explicit core searches were conducted in April. Google Sites ranked first with 10.7 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.6 billion, Microsoft Sites with 2.3 billion, Ask Network with 491 million and AOL, Inc. with 248 million.

U.S. Total Core Search Market Share
Google Sites accounted for 64.2 percent of total core search queries conducted (up 0.1 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 17.9 percent and Microsoft Sites with 13.8 percent (up 0.2 percentage points). Ask Network comprised 2.7 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.4 percent.

Americans conducted more than 18.0 billion total core search queries in April. Google Sites ranked first with 11.6 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.2 billion and Microsoft Sites with 2.5 billion.

“Powered By” Reporting
In order to accurately represent the continued evolution of the search landscape, comScore is providing insight into the share of algorithmic explicit searches that are powered by Google and Bing, and branded as such to the consumer. Google’s “powered by” share is composed of searches conducted at Google entities, as well as branded searches at AOL and Ask. Bing’s “powered by” share is composed of searches conducted at Microsoft entities as well as branded Yahoo! entities.

In April, 67.8 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google, while 26.5 percent of searches were powered by Bing organic results.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics.

Source: comScore

“We are excited to offer marketers a complete solution for capitalizing on the growing social marketing opportunity across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn,” said David Karnstedt, Efficient Frontier’s CEO. “Social media marketing is more than just the initial contact with the customer and requires both compelling experiences and an ongoing dialog to realize the full potential of the interaction. The acquisition of Context Optional will create a unified platform for marketers to manage all of their social media touch points with brand enthusiasts.”

Efficient Frontier’s platform manages ad campaigns across search, display and social media, enabling customers to acquire audiences across multiple channels and optimize for better results. Context Optional’s Social Marketing Suite of products is an enterprise solution for brands to engage and retain audiences across Facebook and Twitter.

By aligning acquisition and engagement strategies, the combined company will be able to deliver a seamless and measurable user experience by integrating advertising and social marketing content. Brands will be able to more efficiently target audiences based on social engagement insights and continually refine their Facebook application experiences to better match their audiences’ interests. Efficient Frontier will also be able to provide integrated analytics to provide a more complete view of performance including virality.

“Efficient Frontier is a leader in digital marketing and our respective clients are asking us for a comprehensive solution to both acquire and build relationships with their customers,” said Kevin Barenblat, Context Optional’s Co-Founder and CEO. “This combination is recognition that social media is now indeed a powerful marketing channel in which brands are significantly investing. We’re excited to be the first in the market with an integrated, enterprise solution to enable brands to effectively scale their investment in social.”

About Efficient Frontier
Efficient Frontier is a leader in online performance marketing managing search marketing, display and social media campaigns for advertisers and agencies around the world. Efficient Frontier currently manages more than $1 billion in annual marketing spend on behalf of their clients globally. Founded in 2002, Efficient Frontier pioneered the application of modern portfolio theory for search engine marketing and today combines its core predictive modeling algorithms and bidding technology with comprehensive strategic and tactical value-added services. The largest and most sophisticated advertisers and agencies partner with Efficient Frontier to achieve and sustain optimal campaign performance and growth in highly complex and competitive marketplaces. The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in New York, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and India, and technology licensing partnerships in Japan, Hong Kong and Australia. Efficient Frontier is a privately held company with funding from Redpoint Ventures and Cambrian Ventures. For more information, please visit http://www.efrontier.com and subscribe to the Efficient Frontier blog at blog.efrontier.com.

About Context Optional
Context Optional is the leading provider of social marketing software and services to global brands and advertising agencies. The company provides marketers with comprehensive solutions to build, manage, monitor and measure brand presence across the social web to meet their acquisition, engagement and retention goals. By combining a leading technology platform, industry expertise, and comprehensive analytics into an integrated approach, Context Optional delivers the most effective social CRM and marketing solutions to Fortune 500 brands and agencies. Context Optional is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York. For more information, please visit http://www.contextoptional.com.

Covario’s U.S. search revenues grew by 37.7 percent in 2010 — the highest growth rate among the top 20 search agencies in the ranking. The San Diego-based firm reported search revenue in terms of net revenue only, exclusive of paid search media fees and Web development work.

“As impressive as our U.S. growth was in 2010, international search marketing now represents more than 40 percent of our business and is growing at a faster rate than domestic campaigns,” said Russ Mann, Covario’s chief executive. “With our global revenue included we would have ranked even higher.” Covario was one of only five search marketing agencies to improve upon its position in the ranking from the previous year when the firm made its first appearance on the annual Ad Age list.

Founded in 2006, Covario was also featured for the first time in the 2011 Forrester Research Wave of U.S. Search Marketing Agencies, along with eight other firms from among some 100 agencies considered. In Forrester’s summary of the report, Covario was noted as “best for SEO (search engine optimization).” Last year, Covario made the INC. 500 list of the nation’s fastest-growing privately-held companies for the second year in a row, as well as the Software 500 list of largest U.S. software firms. The search marketing firm has also won numerous awards — together with its clients — for both SEO and PPC (pay per click) programs, including two first place MediaPost OMMA Awards for paid search campaigns and an IAB MIXX Gold Award for “the best search campaign.” The company has nearly 130 employees worldwide who support about 100 clients, representing more than 1,000 brands and websites. In addition to paid and organic search marketing software and services, the firm provides its global enterprise clients with display advertising support, social media marketing, and cross-media attribution analysis.

About Covario™ Covario, Inc. is among the nation’s largest independent SEM (search engine marketing) and SEO (search engine optimization) solutions providers, offering software and agency services for paid and organic search management. Covario provides large global organizations with robust solutions for paid search advertising, organic search (SEO), social media and display advertising. Covario enables complex and distributed organizations to control their brand integrity; ensure budget transparency; and deliver quantifiable results across business units, distribution channels and languages. Headquartered in San Diego, the company’s growing customer base includes some of the world’s best known brands in technology, retail, ecommerce, financial services, consumer electronics, media, entertainment, publishing and consumer packaged goods. More information about Covario is available by calling 858.397.1500 or visiting online at http://www.covario.com.

“At Barnes & Noble College, we are dedicated to bringing our campus partners ‘what’s next’ in the education retail industry, and our launch of social commerce is just the latest example,” said Max J. Roberts, president of Barnes & Noble College. “Combining our retail excellence with a deep understanding of student and university trends, we are delivering innovative solutions that are transforming our college bookstores and the student experience.”

Barnes & Noble College joins only a handful of retailers in leveraging the ever-increasing power of social networking sites such as Facebook—and its more than 500 million users—for e-commerce. From this social commerce platform, students now can “like” the products they buy from the bookstore and show their friends what they have purchased (or would like to purchase), thereby recommending the products to their peers.

Among college aged students, peer to peer or “word of mouth” recommendations have tremendous power and significantly influence buying behavior—and social media continues to fuel these forms of marketing. According to McKinsey & Company, “word of mouth” is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions. Additionally, a recent Colloquy study found that 56 percent of young adults rely on social networks such as Facebook when it comes to recommending products and services.
“In a university community, students are engaged in campus life through their social networks, including purchasing and recommending products and services,” Roberts added. “In fact, we currently have nearly 250,000 Facebook fans, and the platform has jumped from the fifth to the number one referral site to our campus bookstore websites since the current school year began. We now are taking our social media marketing strategy one step further by integrating the two successful platforms into one social retailing experience.”
Leading social media firms, Enter New Media and Expion, partnered with Barnes & Noble in the development of this innovative platform, which features products found on each bookstore’s website. In addition to the customary Facebook sections (Wall, Info, etc.), the new social commerce platform includes customized tabs, such as:
“The Shop”– showcasing the hottest trends at each individual bookstore
“Books” – offering textbooks in all formats (new, used, rental, digital) and access to NOOKstudy, the retailer’s innovative eReading and study application
“Mascot” – featuring alumni, athletic and other apparel, online promotions, sweepstakes, and a Top Fan section
“The Hall” –a live feed to a student-focused blog, unique applications, gifts and new student orientation materials

Social commerce is the newest example of how Barnes & Noble College is redefining the college retail industry. An early pioneer in social media, the retailer continues to integrate this tool in all of its marketing, communications and customer service initiatives, including Facebook tabs that support important school causes and Twitter and FourSquare initiatives. Further leveraging the power of peer to peer communications, Barnes & Noble College also launched its unique Student Ambassador Program this past year. This program engages students to promote their college bookstore to their peers using both conventional grassroots and evolving social media channels.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 705 bookstores in 50 states. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, Inc., also operates 636 college bookstores serving nearly 4 million students and faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites, which also features more than two million titles in its NOOK Bookstore™ (www.bn.com/ebooks). Through Barnes & Noble’s NOOK™ eReading product offering, customers can buy and read eBooks on the widest range of platforms, including NOOK eBook Readers, devices from partner companies, and hundreds of the most popular mobile and computing devices using free NOOK software.
General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company’s corporate website: www.barnesandnobleinc.com.

About Enter New Media
Enter New Media (ENM) is a leading social media agency specifically focused on creating value for the entertainment, fashion, and retail sectors. ENM is a privately held company based in New York City. For more information, go to http://enternewmedia.com/.

About Expion
Expion enables brands to monitor and manage local social media in real-time to produce actionable intelligence and maintain alignment of social media activities across corporate and local levels to generate extraordinary results. Expion is a privately held company headquartered in Raleigh, N.C. For more information, visit www.expion.com.

“Green sites earned the #1 spot on the top gaining categories ranking in March — a result of Americans seeking ways to cut back on energy consumption beyond Earth Hour amid a backdrop of skyrocketing gas prices,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “Travel sites were also popular during the month as many Americans booked last minute spring break trips and looked ahead to plan summer vacations.”

Americans Paint the Web Green
Year-round tree huggers and gas price-conscious Americans alike had reason to visit Green sites in March. The category drew nearly 20 million visitors during the month, up 11 percent versus February to rank as the top gaining category. Planet Green Sites topped the category with nearly 2.9 million visitors, representing a 24-percent increase from the prior month. Care2.com came in second with 1.9 million visitors, followed by Shine Green with 1.7 million and Mother Nature Network with 1.5 million (up 3 percent). Matter Network grew 37 percent to 985,000 visitors, while EnergyGuide.com saw 870,000 and EPA.gov reached 833,000 (up 17 percent).

Travel Sites Spring into Action
Americans frequented travel sites in March, putting several of the travel subcategories among the top gainers. Travel Information sites attracted more than 61.4 million visitors, up 10 percent from the prior month. TravelAdNetwork took the top spot with 19.9 million visitors (up 8 percent), followed by Yahoo! Travel with 12.6 million (up 22 percent), Tripadvisor Sites with 10.0 million (up 14 percent) and AOL Travel with 6.5 million (up 63 percent).

Car Rental sites grew 9 percent to 6.0 million unique visitors in March, with Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company taking the #1 spot with 3.3 million visitors (up 9 percent) and Avis Budget Group with 1.8 million (up 4 percent). Hertz came in third with 979,000 visitors, followed by Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc. with 968,000 (up 19 percent) and CarRentals.com with 934,000 (up 31 percent).

Traffic Builds at Home Improvement Sites
Americans browsed Home Improvement sites in March for fresh decorating ideas and gardening tips. More than 49 million people visited the category during the month (up 10 percent vs. February), with eHow Home and Garden taking the top spot with 8.8 million visitors. iVillage Home and Garden drew 6.8 million visitors (up 32 percent), followed by HGTV with 6.1 million (up 13 percent) and Shelterpop with 3.0 million (up 46 percent).

Top 50 Properties
Yahoo! Sites ranked as the #1 property in March with 179.5 million visitors, followed by Google Sites with 176.8 million and Microsoft Sites with 176.4 million. Sites new to the top 50 in March included FoxNews.com (#41), Time Warner (#49) and BuzzMedia (#50).

Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
Google Ad Network led the March Ad Focus ranking with a reach of 91.7 percent of Americans online, followed by Yahoo! Sites (84.4 percent), Yahoo! Network Plus (83.9 percent) and AOL Advertising (83.8 percent).

About comScore Media Metrix
comScore Media Metrix provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. comScore Media Metrix reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. comScore Media Metrix syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics.