Online spending grew to £1.752bn in the first half of 2009, while TV spending decreased 16.1% to £1.639bn in United Kingdom according BBC News. For the first time in the history online advertising overtakes TV and it makes internet is the biggest marketing medium in UK. Internet advertising spending increased 4.6% for the first half of the 2009 and it made internet the only marketing medium with grew this year.

This is how people predicted Future of Advertising in 1885

Analyst Ian Maude of Enders Analysis commented on this situation: “TV maintains its role as the big daddy of display advertising, but the main driver of Internet advertising in the U.K. has been search and particularly Google Inc” (source Wall Street Journal).
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 Just year ago I used to wake up and check performances of my websites, sometimes it was an hour long process to check trackbacks, buzz on Technorati, RSS submissions, Google Analytics, and website backend for comments, submissions, and recent activity. Now it just… who Tweeted me?  

 It is sad but people don’t link your site from their blogs, websites, and social profiles. Almost entire web community moved to Twitter and people prefer to Tweet favorite links, good articles, viral stuff etc. Amount of incoming links dropped dramatically especially in blogoshphere, Darren Rowse mentioned that amount of inbound links dropped dramatically. Even annoying individuals who used to comment and link everyone to make friends moved to Twitter and now they Tweet every website and user they can find.
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 I remember 10-15 years ago my dad called me to announce a “great news”, he was a 1 000 000 visitor to some website and now he wait when people call, email, or mail him information on how to receive a prize. I was just laughing at him… Yes, 15 years ago people used to click banners, submit forms, and follow sponsored links. Today it is hard to trick users and make them believe in online offers and promotions. It is almost impossible to convict people to click ads even when banner or link has perfect match with your design, niche, or content. According John Chow, Google AdSense used to be a perfect tool to make money several years ago. Average earnings from Google AdSense was about $5-8 for 1000 impressions. Today earnings dropped to less than a dollar for 1000 impressions. It means, that you can get 1-3 clicks if 1000 people will visit your page. Easy to guess, only $100 for 100k visitors and $1000 for million visitors. 99.9% websites and blogs don’t have 1 000 000 traffic in a year.

 I still meet a lot of people who believes that they can make a fortune with Google AdSense but all their efforts end with desperate jumps from AdSense to Yahoo Ads, from Yahoo ads to AdBrite, from AdBrite to Bidvertiser etc. Capturing leads, selling stuff, and professional use of affiliate programs is the only way to make money online and monetise your website.

How website look:

How reader see it:

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 Today another person asked me how to get YouTube video on Google Search, make optimization, and improve rankings. It actually suprised me because I had the same question in the past. YouTube is another website and Google treat YouTube like any other site. Some people are saying that Google prefers to rank YouTube better because YouTube is part of Google network… it is not true. In fact, Google does not give any preferences to it’s own sites, for example, search for a keyword ”translator” and you’ll see that Yahoo Text Translator appears higher than Google Translator. YouTube rank high on Google (and other search engines) becasuse it is the best video sharing network and one of the most popular site in the world with billions content pages.

Snippets to different 2 chicks 1 cup reactions in Google search results.
 As you see, it is not only YouTube videos but also other networks as well.

 Google treat YouTube videos the same way like any other popular video sharing sites (Veoh, MetaCafe, Revver etc). It creates snippet with video preview for popular videos or regular result preview for less popular videos. It is automatic process and if your video is popular enough it will appear in search results for related keywords. I would say even more, authors of popular and viral videos almost never use any search engine optimization to gain success.
Read more to find how to optimize YouTube Video

 John Biggs wrote informative post on Crunch Gear comparing financial situation and traffic to Woot shopping site. He pointed that in October and November traffic to Woot dropped after collapse of sock markets but it became to recover after government stimulus packages and signs of financial stability. Take a look:

 
Image source: Crunch Gear

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 Boston Globe published AP press release which state that Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, is drafting a bill that would impose broad new rules on Web sites and advertisers. He is trying to protect consumers and ensure what type of information companies collect when people go online and browse websites.

 Key points of upcomming bill:

•  Websites will need to get user approval if they share information outside advertising network.
•  Opt-in rule will be applied to websites which collect social security numbers, medial information, and other information.
•  Disclosure of information websites collect from visitors.
•  Regulation on who can access personal information.

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 Google Maps turned into powerful tool for local businesses and companies. It generates not only traffic but quality leads and many business owners already noticed that more consumers find them browsing Google maps. Every day more people use cell phones with Google Maps application, notebooks, and gadgets which allow not only to get directions but to find local businesses as well. More iPhone applications appear which allow finding what around you and where to shop. Google Maps presence can increase amount of leads or work and conversion funnel helping to convert existing leads into sales.

 In example above you can see car dealer from Massachusetts which got 158 visitors from Google Maps to their site. Call tracking showed that 17 phone calls came after people saw listing on the maps. 7 walk-in customers said that they were using Google Maps.  Leads improved dramatically after dealership owners reviewed Google Maps listing and made adjustments in Google Business Center by adding photos, more information about business, and detailed description.
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Article by Lisa D. Myers Get Special Price” to Appear in Google Maps, Now! captured my attention. Lisa wrote about company from Norway which offered her friend to submit business in Google Maps. As we know, Google doesn’t offer any featured, paid, express, sponsored submissions but some companies still use shady tactics trying to sell free service to business owners who are not too savvy in technology and web marketing. Working in advertising industry for many years I saw a lot of examples when companies with big names try to cheat and add “extra” services to their bill. It raise my eyebrows and make me laugh when some sales agent call or come to my office trying to sell me something with hopes that I still live in 1986.

The most unique and sometimes funny tactics I met:

We’ll keep meta tags on your website for $1000 / month!

Yacht dealer from New England hired me to help with SEO and I noticed right away that website doesn’t have meta tags. I called their CMS (content management) provider, apparently multinational company, and asked why meta tags is missing and there is no way to access FTP or add them through their content management. Representative on the phone told me that it will cost $1000 / month to activate meta tags option on a website. Holly crap! How come I never came up first with this “genius” idea”!
Read about more shady techniques

 Search engine submission lost it’s importance in web marketing since search engines became faster and can index new website or page incredibly fast. It is useless to use Google submission form because it still takes days and even weeks to index a website. Many webmasters found that link building and participation in social networks guarantee indexation in several hours. In many cases it is enough to submit new website or page in several sites like Digg or Stumbleupon and site will be indexed.

 Many people are getting confused between two terms: search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine submisison. Search engine optimization is a process to improve a website in search engine results and get better traffic from search engines. Search engine submission is a process to list your site on peoplular search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
Read more to find how to get listed fast…

Google “sandbox” is a term webmaster use to describe Google punishment. Many web marketers are skeptical about “sandbox” and Google itself denies form of punishment called “sandbox”. It still creates a lot of discussions in SEO forums and webmaster communities to explain website partial removal from Google index or sudden drop in rankings for specific keywords especially when site was over-optimized or “black hat” SEO applied.

Signs which tell that website was placed in Google”sandbox”:

If you open a new website and become build links very aggressive especially for popular keywords you site can appear on Google for a little while but suddenly loose all positions for all keywords except when you type full domain name. It happens when webmaster submit site in thousands directories overnight, use submission software, build links with the same anchor over and over again, spam in forums or blogs.

Google can also move site to “sandbox” if you use link farms or build links from fake blogs / sites hosted by free hosting providers. Example: many blogs on Blogger which was created to link your new website.

Unlimited link exchange or link buying process could lead to “sandbox” punishments as well especially if link building software or networks were involved.
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