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As we move from 2008 into 2009, everyone seems to  be getting into the forecasting business.  If you wait a little, you can even get to review some of the other forecasts that people have already made.  In search marketing, many seem to be suggesting little change.  For example Steve Rubel has the following three points in his post on Reading Tea Leaves for 2009. (more…)

Internet opens the doors to a worldwide audience; if they can find the website. People search for all sort of things on the search engines, such as Google. This is the search engine traffic that visits the web pages on the websites or blogs in search of information.

What are people looking for? How do they find it? These become the two most crucial questions that need to be asked when trying to direct traffic to a website.

Let us first understand that this search-engine based traffic is free traffic and to gain access to this traffic, a webmaster has to work at two levels; the setting up of a perfect content management system and at the article level. Both become very important.

Here let us see from a writer’s perspective, at how a good article needs to be written to attract quality search engine traffic.

Out of the three sources for traffic; friends of the webmaster who come directly to the website; people who come to the site by following links at other sites; the traffic that is directed by the search engines to a particular article becomes very important. A decent website is said to be one that can attract search engine traffic, which is at least half of all the traffic.

Search engine traffic comes to different pages within the website and it solely depends on the content within the web pages. It thus becomes important that every article on a site draws some traffic to the site. (more…)

Let us talk about Google first, the more popular of the two. Google is a major search engine that is well-known and well-used in many countries around the world. It provides the world’s largest and most scalable platform for huge web based applications.

While Google has always been known for its superior search engine performance, Baidu is a Chinese search engine that seems to be winning against Google, in the search engine war in China. Alexa ranking shows Baidu as the fifth most popular site in terms of visitors.

Research shows that Baidu commands approximately 60% of the Chinese search engine market, while Google is said to command about 25%. China is the world’s 2nd largest search engine markets with 150 million users, with potential of increasing tremendously in the future.

People in China find Baidu better and according to them, it produces better search performance. Their strong preference for their native search engine is revealed through their advertising, which calls Google, the “clueless foreigner.”

Analysts feel that this could just be the spurious opinion of the loyal Chinese citizen. This fact is reiterated by some people who admitted to using it because it is Chinese. Studies and comparisons reveal that Google is a more superior and powerful search engine. Google presents a better experience for the user. (more…)

In marketing there is no substitute for effective, targeted advertising. For example, if you want to sell beach towels, you need to go where there is a need and desire for those towels. You won’t find beach towel retailers lined up anywhere but along coastal communities and resorts. Likewise if you want to sell your beach towels online, you need to display your advertising where beach towel consumers can find it. And that is where Google AdWords comes in.

There are more than a few ways to find highly targeted advertising online. Continuing the example of beach towels, you can start your own beach towel website and perform enough SEO that you’re ranking highly in the search engines. This generates natural traffic from effective marketing, but can take time.

In your search for other customers, you can create banners and other advertisements for use on other websites. These banners might be used by affiliates marketing your products and bringing you their beach towel customers for a percentage of the final sale. You might also use the banners and advertisements on other beach product websites. You might find another website selling sand toys or swimsuits and buy some ad space for your beach towel website. (more…)