Google’s much anticipated “gPhone” is set to release and compete if not dominate the new iPhone. gPhone is the most sought after competitor of Apple’s iPhone in the latest cellular phone tech boom. They both offer similar features but with one big catch; the gPhone is a fraction of the cost of it’s rival competitor, Apple. Cost is generally the most important stipulation when the public is looking into updating their current technology.
Ok, for all of those who are saying ‘If SEO is so easy, why isn’t allinanchor.com at the top of the SERPS?’. The easy answer is that SEO isn’t hard, it’s expensive. Here’s what it all comes down to:
Today Google announced that they will be offering small businesses the ability to have their own search engine to search their own site for $100. That’s a significant decrease in price over the previously required Google Mini cost of $1995.00. So, what’s the difference? According to Google, not much except the size of the index. We’ll see if this turns out to be true, as those who have used the Google Mini have absolutely loved it, even though it costs almost 2 grand.
There are some limitations as to how many pages the service will index:
The price for Google’s “Custom Search Business Edition” will start at $100 annually to sift through up to 5,000 Web pages. Larger Web sites can pay Google $500 annually to search up to 50,000 Web pages.I know that my websites (including this blog) have yet to cross the 5k page mark. I suppose that when I do cross that threshhold that I won’t even balk for a minute over having to pay less than $50.00 per month for a quality search feature. How does search effect your bottom line? Providing easy access to your content is one of the proven methods of increase website stickiness. Having a good search tool is fundamental in assisting your visitors in finding the content that they are looking for. Think of how many times you have been on a website and had to use the search tool to find what you were looking for because the navigation was just not doing it for you… And you are an expert. Imagine how hard it is for normal, non-supergeeks, to find information in those cases. Having a great search tool can mean the difference between keeping a visitor on your site, and losing them forever.
Ok, so it was a long time coming, but according to the Yahoo post about their new ‘Yahoo Suggest’ tool, they are up and running. How does this effect your search engine marketing efforts… Not at all. How does it effect the usability of Yahoo as a search engine… Greatly. I use the Google toolbar constantly, and one of the biggest reasons is the built-in suggest functionality. Personally, I have always preferred Yahoo as my home page. It will be nice to see if this actually entices me to start using Yahoo for my search results as well. Little changes like this can have a big impact on user satisfaction, and it’s a little touch that can win over those searchers riding the fence between the big 3 search engines. For me, I’ll just have to wait and see.
Ok, we all know that if you want to get anywhere in the SEO world, you pretty much have to buy links. Is this ‘Black Hat‘? Who knows. Rand posts some information on the subject with some pretty nice examples of sites that have used payed linking.
In the current search marketing environment, it’s exceptionally hard to find a website that’s ranking highly for competitive queries in niche fields that isn’t employing paid link tactics to bolster their position.
I personally think that SEOs need to develop the skills and a network of venues for the procurement of paid links if they want to be effective. The ‘White Hat’ vs. ‘Black Hat’ debate has never been an issue to me. It’s our job as SEOs to do the very best that we can for our client’s. You can label that whatever you like. I know that we have had great success, and it’s due in large part to our willingness to look past what some people call ‘Black Hat’ or the enigmatic ‘Gray Hat‘ labels and just do what works. That’s what we get paid for, and that is what our clients want.