Latest Trends in SEM 6/15/10

June 16, 2010 - PRLog -- Google's Caffeine Update Live
Google’s year long project to launch its new Caffeine infrastructure is complete. The Caffeine update launched in all of Google’s data centers earlier this month. Caffeine is the code name for the Google project to update their web crawling technology. Google’s previous crawling infrastructure was built when the web was a simpler and smaller place. With the onslaught of real-time updates (e.g., Twitter and Facebook), video, photos and other new forms of content, Google had to make its process of collecting and organizing that information faster.

Caffeine breaks some of the previous bottlenecks and get new content to the web faster. It is important to point out that Caffeine does not change the ranking algorithms that determine where your site comes up in the rankings at this point. Google has indicated that the Caffeine infrastructure will let them collect new types of information that they might ultimately use to change the algorithms.

We’ve noticed that content that we write and publish is being found faster in the Google index than what we were seeing last year. As always, we will keep a close watch for changes to the actual ranking algorithm and incorporate that into our SEO programs.


Google Maps Optimization
A local search optimization blogger recently polled a group of SEO firms to have them rank the most important factors for improving a business’ position in Google Maps or Google Places. The local search results are often shown when searchers include geographic keywords in their searches. We’ve included the top four most important things for local map optimization:


- Claim your local listing in Google Places. This is obvious except for those of us whose listing is duplicated or cannot get the verification card from Google.
- Business address is city of search. Basically this means that when someone searches for a “dentist in reston, va” it is really important that your office is in reston, va. This is hard to control but it does mean that if you are in a town next to a larger town, it will be harder for your office to come up when people search for offices in the bigger town even if you are only a few miles away.
- Set categories in your Google Place listing. In addition to claiming the listing (#1), you should make sure that your profile is as complete as possible.
-Off-page and Off-listing Criteria. This group has to do with the traditional SEO components like links to your website and content on the website.

Two of the top four factors are related to claiming and completing your profile in Google Places. While setting up your profile is necessary to get started, you’ll need to add traditional off-page and off-listings SEO tactics to improve your position in the rankings.


AOL Launches Ad Desk
AOL has had many plans to regain their leadership on the Internet. Many of these plans have been half-baked and poorly executed. Since AOL hired Tim Armstrong, a former Google executive, they have been quietly laying the groundwork for a comeback. Whether their investors and Wall Street will give them the time they need remains unclear.

Lats Month, we profiled Facebook advertising. Like Facebook, AOL is borrowing from the Google playbook by building their own self-service advertising platform where small businesses or agencies can easily manage small advertising programs. That program is called Ad Desk and it touts simple setup and administration. AOL’s previous model typically required large minimum ad spends that were always negotiated by highly paid salespeople. The new model emphasizes the smaller advertisers being serviced by a lower cost online channel.

To make the strategy work, AOL has been both buying and building all sorts of niche content sites. The NY Times recently wrote an article about how AOL chooses what to write based on search volume rather than using a editorial department. Their software uses people’s searches to determine which content to write and automatically assigns those tasks to both in-house writers as well as an army of cheap freelancers.

AOL’s growing library of content along with a lowest cost and easy-to-use self-service advertising interface may yet be the recipe for success.

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At Elite Media Marketing, our goal is to work closely with our business clients to develop a complete and personalized marketing, advertising, and public relation strategy that is completely focused on solving their businesses specific needs.