Let’s keep Lawgical in our sights and if visitors have used them in the past, we’d love to hear from you.

Lawgical, the parent company of several trusted legal support networks, released their latest product called Lawgical Local. This service helps legal professionals achieve higher rankings in Google Places and other local search platforms, where according to Forbes.com, 70% of consumers are searching for services. Since most potential clients will use searches like “New York Paralegal” or “Chicago Criminal Attorney” to find legal professionals, local search optimization is an essential part of a successful marketing strategy. Lawgical Local is a great service for legal professionals who don’t have time for the overwhelming process of optimizing their online presence for local search results but want to make sure their name is in front of the bulk of their clients.

Stu Perlmutter, a process server who uses Lawgical Local in tandem with other Lawgical marketing products explains, “I was looking for more work and wasn’t happy with my ranking.” After two months Perlmutter’s rankings began to change and work coming from out-of-state went through the roof. As a busy professional, Perlmutter prefers to leave his marketing strategy to the experts. “I don’t care how [my clients] found me,” he says, “It’s just important that they found me, and the people and products at Lawgical make that happen.”

“The Internet is constantly evolving and the ranking factors for local search are always changing,” company co-founder Trent Carlyle explains. “We guide our clients through what they should be doing to interact with their customers and how that engagement can have a positive impact on their rankings.”

The Lawgical Local service allows legal professionals to focus on running their business instead of spending hours each month setting-up, managing and monitoring their business online. Lawgical Local includes:

1. hand submissions to dozens of the most critical local directories and social media platforms
2. optimization of primary local listings including Google, Yahoo and Bing
3. inclusion of business info in data feeds that populate the web’s most trafficked sites and online yellow pages
4. ongoing monitoring of data accuracy
5. ongoing guidance on strategies to continuously improve local and organic rankings.

About Lawgical

Lawgical provides online marketing and web-based solutions for legal professionals. The company’s portfolio is anchored by AboutBail.com, ServeNow.com, PInow.com, ProcessServers.com and ServeManager – all leading brands in their respective industries. Lawgical also develops and manages software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for the legal industry.

BrightEdge pioneered enterprise-grade search engine optimization (SEO) in 2008 by delivering the first and only cloud-based platform that systematically allowed enterprises to grow their web site traffic and revenue through organic search. Today, it is the most widely used enterprise-grade search engine optimization (SEO) platform used by more than 2,000 brands and top digital agencies to attract customers from the billions of searches that happen on the web every day.

The company’s BrightEdge S3 platform is powered by a massive big-data foundation with an actionable analytics front end. In the past year BrightEdge has consistently delivered innovations that have led its market leadership position, including support for Facebook page optimization, Social signal measurement, Global SEO, SEO recommendations, and SEO tasks and workflow.

“We revolutionized how enterprises manage to be found when potential customers search for terms relevant to their business. Demand for BrightEdge S3 has been massive, and we welcome this funding to further grow our dominant market leadership position,” said Jim Yu, co-founder and CEO of BrightEdge. “Last year was a watershed year for us. We saw more than 400 percent growth, and doubling of our employee base. 2012 will be an even bigger year as we expand our business operations across the US and in Europe.”

“With consumer and business audiences competing for customers in search and social, BrightEdge’s platform is an elegant and effective solution that makes it possible to manage and optimize the process for companies that rely on the Internet to acquire users,” said Lisa Lambert, vice president at Intel Capital and managing director, Software and Services sector. “Their big-data technology, experienced cloud/SaaS leadership team and commercial success to date position them to be one of the core platforms for companies that rely on digital channels.”

BrightEdge has experienced tremendous growth in the past 18 months. It now serves more than 2,000 leading brands around the globe. BrightEdge currently serves 7 of the top 10 retailers, 8 of the top 10 digital agencies, and software leaders such as Microsoft, Facebook, VMWare, Symantec, Intuit and Citrix.

The funding will be used to continue its team growth, which has doubled in size as well as help expand the company’s footprint with offices in NY and London.

About BrightEdge
BrightEdge is the leading site, search, and social management solution for global enterprises, helping more than 2000 of the world’s largest brands stay ahead in the rapidly evolving Internet landscape.

BrightEdge S3 harnesses the power of analytics on big-data to drive revenue from web sites, search engines and social networks across the globe in a measurable, predictable way. social networks across the globe in a measurable, predictable way. BrightEdge is based in San Mateo, CA and is privately held with financing from Battery Ventures, Altos Ventures and Illuminate Ventures.

Source: BrightEdge

The Obama administration laid out a set of principles covering the basics of privacy and it does a very good job in covering off on control, transparency, context, security, access and accuracy, limited liability and accountability. Where we believe it falls short is the the definition of personal data and whether the definition truly protects consumers’ privacy and how the framework can be enforced.

As it stands now, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) will review practices of companies who voluntarily agree to the terms, though the White House stresses that they expect Congress pass official legislation protecting the public’s online privacy and personal data. We may be months away from seeing real-world implications of the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights.

Our readers straddle both the advertising and consumer lines, so it’s good to see that there’s a discussion around consumer privacy. Lets make sure it continues. Lets hope we all think through implications holistically and ensure there’s enforcement. With social taking off and creating a whole new universe, the implications are greater than ever.

For those who haven’t reviewed the bill of rights, CNN Money has posted it, Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights.

In the meantime, Anonymizer, Inc. wants consumers to take online privacy matters into their own hands by employing a comprehensive Internet security strategy.

The recently announced consumer Privacy Bill of Rights and the browser-based Do Not Track button are designed to protect the online privacy of consumers and to set expectations for how companies should handle personal data. Anonymizer, Inc., www.anonymizer.com claims that while these initiatives will prevent some Web tracking, they will not stop all tracking. And, they still do not necessarily prevent advertisers from collecting and selling user data.

“We’re encouraged to see the consumer Privacy Bill of Rights and Do Not Track technology, but they are still not a 100% guarantee that consumers and their personal data will be protected,” said Lance Cottrell, Founder and Chief Technology Officer for Anonymizer, Inc. “While these initiatives are steps in the right direction, they should not be relied on exclusively. Consumers must take an active role in protecting their online privacy.”

In addition to opting out of tracking, consumers should adjust their browser privacy settings, block cookies, clear old cookies, and adopt a broad Internet security strategy that includes an online privacy product that prevents activities from being tracked based on their IP address. Products like Anonymizer Universal, www.anonymizer.com/homeuser/universal, help prevent unauthorized access to personal data on Wi-Fi hotspots and keep users anonymous online while at home, at work and on the go.

For more on Anonymizer, Inc.’s views on the Privacy Bill of Rights and Do Not Track initiatives, please visit:

About Anonymizer, Inc.
As the global leader in online privacy, anonymity, and identity protection solutions, Anonymizer continues to push the envelope with products that allow consumers and organizations to remain safe, secure, and anonymous each time they go online. The company’s proprietary technologies address the needs of home users and businesses. With a pristine 15-year history of protecting customer online identities, Anonymizer’s products have set the standard in Internet privacy, and protected billions of web searches and personal communications.

Sources:

Anonymizer
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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.