“It’s great to see continued innovation in search, in particular the level of energy in this space over the last 12-15 months. From improving accuracy of results to speeding up time to complete tasks, there are a lot of opportunities to improve today’s search engine and we’re working hard to do so. When Bing and Google compete to improve search, consumers win.”

I do think, however, that if left too long, Google’s instant search is going to eventually become the norm (like it or not). Over time, the difference between Google and Bing will begin to feel like Google Maps and Map Quest did.

James Citron is CEO and Co-Founder of Mogreet, the worldʼs first mobile video marketing platform. The digital entrepreneur has more than a decade of experience in the mobile industry with a proven track record for introducing successful, cutting-edge technology into the global marketplace. Follow him at @jamescitron.

Five years ago, a Canadian handset company stormed onto the scene with the hottest “must have” mobile device. The RIM BlackBerrywas around before the iPhone, when the Droid was still just science fiction.

Today, the seas have changed considerably. The mobile scene is now a two-horse race between Apple and Google. Where is RIM, the company that still commands so much of the smartphone market?

The days of the always-reliable BlackBerry may be numbered, save for a major re-focus of the company. BlackBerry will have to not only find its roots, but use them as a recipe to regain its thought leadership amongst mobile influencers and consumers. Here are four possible approaches.

1. Forget Apps – Leverage the New Mobile Web
2. Forget “Me Too” Innovation
3. Embrace and Market BBM
4. Open Mobile Marketing APIs

For marketers struggling to figure out which unique ad format to support or which mobile ad network to buy from, keep it simple: BlackBerry has 40% of the U.S. smartphone market and allows advertisers to use mobile web standards (not proprietary ad formats) to connect with your still affluent, hip audience. By embracing open standards, BlackBerry can win the love of advertisers who will create high-quality advertisements and not have to create one-off campaigns like the new iAds on Apple’s IOS4.

Good luck RIM. Despite what some say, you still can win the smartphone war — if you play it smart.

Source: http://mashable.com/2010/08/02/blackberry-stay-relevant/

A recent interview with Nathan Thompson at the Inbound Internet Marketing blog yielded some takeaways that may help clarify SEO’s development—and demonstrate how you can beef up your efforts to meet the seemingly insatiable demands of today’s search engines. Among Thompson’s points:

SEO is more sophisticated than ever. Basic best-practices have become so widespread that their simple implementation no longer offers the advantages it once did. And this makes testing a critical element in any SEO program. “Understanding how, why and when your efforts affect your rankings is just as important as your rank itself,” Thompson states. “Some of this comes from research, but even more of it comes from watching those who rank above you, and from your own experimentation.”

Resources spent on PageRank are wasted if they don’t improve your bottom line. “If all of your high-converting traffic comes from affiliates or PPC advertising,” he explains, “then rank probably doesn’t mean much to you. But if improving your rank is going to provide you an ROI based on increased leads, more qualified traffic, etc., then rank probably matters to you a lot.”

A misplaced focus can reduce the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. “Start with the end in mind,” Thompson advises. “The goal is not to improve organic traffic; it’s to get more customers, sales, subscriptions.”

The Po!nt: Pump up and test. For continued success in an SEO-savvy environment, it’s time to go above and beyond standard best-practices. Take some real chances to boost your SEO strength, but make sure you test along the way.

Those estimates come from RescueTime, a firm specialising in time management software, which examined its users’ web habits on Friday and discovered that they spent an average of 36 extra seconds on Google as some were sucked into the classic arcade game.

While 36 seconds might not sound much, it adds up quickly when you consider that Google had 504m unique users during the day. RescueTime reckons there were an extra 4.82m hours spent on the page, above and beyond the usual 33.6m hours visitors spend on Google daily. If all those people had an average “cost” of $25 per hour, the tally comes out at $120,483,800.

Pac-Man was on Google’s homepage to mark the 30th anniversary of the game. The Silicon Valley internet search company reckons, somewhat dubiously, that Google has much in common with Pac-Man: “They’re both deceptively straightforward, carefully hiding their complexity under the hood. There’s a light-hearted, human touch to both of them.”

For anybody who got hopelessly hooked, Google has created a permanent Pac-Man page here.

What is Joomla?

Open Source content management systems (popularly referred to as a CMS) are all the rage these days. And with good reason! 5 years ago, the type of functionality that you can get from an open source CMS like Joomla! (www.joomla.org) would have easily set you back $50,000 and required 2 developers and a phd in rocket science to get value out of it! Thankfully systems like Joomla have made webmasters lives a LOT easier when it comes to providing our clients and customers (or our own websites) with an easy to use but powerful CMS for managing our website content.

What are joomla templates?

One of the biggest challenges with a CMS is getting a nice looking template that differentiates your website from the competition. A major challenge with any CMS driven site for someone who is not a skilled web designer is achieving a look and feel that avoids the “sameness” of a lot of CMS driven websites. Luckily Joomla templates are quite easy to build if you’re already a skilled designer. If you’re not then you are still in luck as there are literally hundreds of Joomla templates out there that will get you up and running in no time. Joomla templates can be grouped into roughly 3 categories:

• free joomla templates
• joomla template clubs
• commercial joomla templates

There are advantages to each group. Free templates are obviously free! Having said that you’ll most likely easily find another website using the same template as you pretty easily. If that’s not a problem for you then great – off you go! If this is an issue then commercial Joomla templates could be the way to go.

Shape 5 Joomla Templates

Why commercial joomla templates?

Commercial joomla templates can be of significant value to you as a Joomla website administrator. Key advantages include:

• can be of exceptionally high quality – you’ll generally find joomla template designers churn out some of the best looking templates for any CMS on the market. But do be careful to ensure the build quality (including HTML/CSS, javacript) is up to scratch. Buyer beware, there are also commercial joomla templates out there who sacrifice quality for quantity! Bestofjoomla.com is a great site for getting great feedback on joomla template designers.
• support, support, support – let’s face it, your going to want to tweak a logo here, a few colours there and maybe even make some layout changes. That’s where a good support network comes into play. Check out the joomla template creators website and make sure you can get support online.
• Price – don’t get ripped off! You’ll find most commercial joomla templates range in price from as low as $10 up to $100 – don’t pay any more than that unless you want an exclusive license for the template just for your site – unless you’re happy to be potentially ripped off!

Anyways, that raps us up for the moment. If you’ve not yet had a chance to play would Joomla! I would encourage to check it out – it’s a fantastic open source CMS that will run just about any site with ease.

Shape 5 Joomla Templates

If you are in the field of online business you must have heard of online marketing. Internet marketing, online marketing, e-marketing and web marketing are just the same terms to describe the use of the internet in marketing and promoting your products, services or business. In recent years, online marketing has provided global consumers a higher distribution of information. With today’s increased competition, you must possess the skills and capabilities to attain success. Every success story entails hardships, ups and down, but it’s up to you to learn how to avoid the pitfalls with online marketing. That’s why we are going to discuss the top ten reasons online marketing fails.

Reason #1: The lack of effort and time needed to learn new information about online marketing.

To reach the success you are aspiring to obtain, you must spend adequate efforts and time learning what can lead you to it. Get as much as new online marketing information you can and take time to study them before you use of them for your company’s growth. The more knowledge and experience you can possess, the quicker you will reach your goals. Often the best online marketing techniques will come to you suddenly, but evolves out of all the information you might know. Do not let your business be deserted by others, make it stand out by utilizing new online marketing strategies. Wide varieties of new information are available throughout the web; just encode an online marketing in Google and you will find what you are looking for. Never stop craving for more and new information, techniques, or techniques about online marketing for you will never grow personally or financially if you are not learning something new.

Reason #2: Similarity with other online business websites.

To increase customer’s interest, your website must be different from other online business web pages. Visitors get easily bored if they browse and always see the same products, content, and pictures. In order for your online marketing to be successful, you should make your website distinguished from your other competitors. Always make use of unique online marketing ideas when creating your web pages, for it will matter a tremendous amount when trying to attract more potential customers.

Reason #3: Your website is confusing and inconvenient for visitors.

One of the reasons for using online marketing is to promote your products or services to your target audience on the internet. Having too many products, pictures, links, etc. in your web pages can cause confusion and a confused mind will take no action; thereby leaving you without the number of customers that you could and should attract with youronline marketing efforts. Try to be simple and focus on a particular product or service with your website. Making sure your other products are in the background of the main product or service you would like to promote. A long navigation system will make people get tired of finding what they want and can cause them to prefer other convenient sites.

Reason #4: Your website is just a sales presentation.

Increasing your sales may result from online marketing, but you must not totally focus on sales alone. Online marketing will benefit you if you provide useful information about your business within your website and attract more potential and actual customers to purchase your products.or services. Most of the time sales do not arise from the first visit, so make use of your online marketing techniques such as providing free information, tips or newsletters to give visitors a reason to come back to visit your website.

Reason #5: Failure to set specific demographic targets.

With online marketing, setting a specific demographic target is very important because you will be more focused on what type of customers you want and what you must do to attract them. Failure to settle the target will increase the risk of failure when promoting your products, services or business; moreover you will not gain the full benefits of online marketing when it comes to increasing your sales and growing your business.

Reason #6: Unsecured ordering pages.

Security for any type of investment matters for almost everybody. Unsecured ordering pages will greatly cause your business to lose sales which contradicts the goals of effective online marketing. Numerous free secure ordering forms are made available on the internet, so this should never be an issue.

Reason #7: A lack of back links to your website as a useful strategy in effective online marketing.

Providing links leading back to your website from a high ranking web page will also give your site a high rank. Linking is the key to success in having your website found on the major search engines and will bring traffic to your website; therefore, increasing you number of potential and actual customers.

Reason #8: Lack of perseverance.

Most businesses fail online due to lack of persistence and giving up too soon. Online marketing will take a lot of time to fully succeed. It could even entail years to become a major player and to develop strong customer relationships, build partnerships and see financial rewards.

Reason #9: Insufficient follow-up.

Within any business following up with a prospect or customer is very important because it will provide you with more of the same types of results that your business desperately needs to grow. Online marketing often fails because many companies fall short in following up with its online visitors; thereby, stunting the growth of brand awareness.

Reason #10: No promoting your website.

Increasing the consumer awareness of your online business can leverage your success. Several online marketing elements and strategies can be used to promote your website,increase traffic and attract more customers. If you lack the funds to pay for promotions, you can use many free ways of advertising your business awareness online such as participating in forums, chats and submitting free links to search engines.

You will need all the help you can to survive in this competitive marketplace, so make use of the online resources you have to gain greater success with online marketing and learn from these failures. Prepare yourself properly and get ready to do what you must due because the success of your business online is in direct proportion to your knowledge gained from other’s mistakes.

However, since companies are constantly making organizational changes, their contact persons also change. Furthermore, there are many instances where businesses relocate or even shut down. As a result, not all businesses will be informed of the details of such changes, thus causing a breakdown in the communication chain, leading to information being lost or wasted.

Therefore, to eliminate the occurrence of such events and to speed up business efficiency, many have turned to using mailing lists – Business To Business Mailing Lists. They provide businesses with accurate and reliable details of relevant industry players, as they are being continuously updated. Companies providing such services constantly monitor and conduct research to ensure that information is of relevant use to their customers.

Ordinarily, Business to Business mailing lists contain contact information about individuals or companies which allow people or organizations to contact or send data to multiple recipients at any one time. B2B Mailing Lists contain information collected and complied from various places ranging from business annual reports to newspapers and the yellow pages. This mailing list enables businesses to choose relevant business contact details, information on sales volume and even SIC codes and descriptions about a company. The mailing list creates opportunities for businesses to conduct direct mail marketing, market analysis and promotion of the goods and services offered.

Business To Business Mailing Lists give businesses total control, whether or not a company wants to reach a big business, home business or a small business owner. It allows businesses to save time, without having to source for new contact information, and enables them to utilize a large database to reach thousands or even millions within one direct mail campaign. In addition, businesses have the ability to choose the best mailing list suitable for their product or service, making it an effective way for businesses to ensure that their targeted market is reached.

B2B Mailing Lists also cuts away middleman. It allows companies to get to their target groups directly, since they have the relevant contacts at hand. This further allows them to save time and money when they need to focus on other aspects of the business.

Many companies provide such mailing list services, offering mailing lists as well as knowledge on how one can go about choosing a suitable target audience or mailing list for a marketing campaign. They evaluate the success of each campaign, and provide advice to clients with which they are working with. Essentially, it enables them to increase their business network and grow their customer base. This will often result in the achievement of substantial growth rates.

Businesses simply have to contact a company that deals with mailing lists and they will be on their way to reaching thousands or millions of other businesses! It would definitely be difficult to deny the usefulness of such effective and efficient source of information.

You can’t help but notice trends and patterns when doing this kind of research, and I thought you might be interested in some of those trends. For example, in this article I’ve compiled five of the most popular types of software in the world, based on how often people look them up through Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other search engines.

#1 – Anti-virus Tools

For a long time, I’ve had a conspiracy theory that the companies that make anti-virus programs are in league with the people who create computer viruses in the first place. After all, few things sell anti-virus software like the constant threat of new viruses. Regardless of who’s generating the fear, they are doing a good job of it, because anti-virus software is consistently one of the most frequently searched programs.

Most people computer users are very familiar with these programs, because they come pre-installed on most PCs. There is also a dizzying array of software products that fall into this category, so I won’t try to summarize them here. That’s another article entirely.

#2 – Tax Software

Okay, so there’s a very good chance this one made the list because I conducted my research at tax time (in March). Perhaps if I conducted this study later in the year, tax software would not be quite as popular from a search engine usage standpoint. At any rate, it makes the cut today and falls in right behind the anti-virus programs based on the number of searches.

I use these programs every year at tax time. Or, to be honest, I should say my wife uses these programs while I provide moral support. At any rate, these software products are incredibly useful for people who prepare their own tax returns.

Though each program offers slightly different features, they all perform the same basic function. They walk you step by step through the process of completing your tax-return forms. You just fill in the blanks with the requested information, and the software does the rest. Popular tax software programs include TaxAct, TurboTax and TaxCut (by H&R Block).

#3 – Accounting Software

This type of computer program might be high on the list of Internet search for two reasons. For one thing, it’s very versatile and can be used by professional accountants, small business owners, and others. Secondly, there are terminology reasons for the Internet search popularity of this software. Some people use the phrase “accounting” when referring to the tax-preparation programs mentioned previously, while others use the phrase when referring to the more full-featured programs used by professional accountants.

Regardless of these semantic differences, accounting software is commonly searched through the major search engines, so it makes my list. These programs are most often used to manage the revenue and expenses of a company, including payroll and corporate tax information.

#4 – DVD Burning Tools

As the name suggests, these software programs allow you to reproduce or “burn” copies of DVDs. Of course, these tools also open a Pandora’s box of legal issues, because you cannot just make copies of a commercial DVD without violating copyright laws.

But this is not a legal lesson — it’s a list of popular software types as measured by Internet search patters. And by that yardstick DVD burning programs certainly make the list.

#5 – Video Editing Programs

These software tools allow you to edit video sequences on a computer. You don’t even need a fancy computer to use them, but just a regular old desktop unit (as long as its compatible with the software program you choose).

These products have become increasingly popular over the years, thus creating an army of amateur filmmakers. To use them, you would first create the video footage itself. Then you would use this unique and powerful software to edit the footage on any compatible desktop computer. You can import and export video to and from your computer, cut and paste sections of video, and add special effects and transitions.

* Sources: KeywordTracker and Keyword Discovery. I cross-referenced the most common software types from both tools to create this list.

Studies show majority of Internet surfers use search engine for search of information.

So, it is important for your business profitability and development to promote your products or services through the search engine.

And, In order to promote your web through the search engine effectively, you have to employ search engine optimization techniques to bring your website at the top of the search engine results page.

Or, in other words, to get the desired exposure out of your search engine optimization activities, your website should be ranked in the top 10 of search engine results page.

The best part about search engine traffic is that in addition to getting a highly targeted traffic to your website, you do not pay a dime for traffic.

But, search engine optimization requires a set of tools, resource and knowledge.

There fore, if you want to get highly targeted visitors to your website, it is important to employ search engine optimization techniques to rank your web site well in the search engine.

Summary

As it has been noted earlier, Natural search engine traffic is one of the most important traffic sources which will have a great role in the success of your web business.

Therefore, you have to employ search engine optimization techniques to create highly optimized website and make your business very defensible.

But, the problem with SEO is it requires huge time, money and resources. You need to organize your time and resources to get the most.

To tell you frankly -you need time ,budget and resources .

There fore, you have to plan on short term and long term basis of traffic and income generation.

As, SEO is actually a long term basis, you need to device a short term (instant traffic generation) plan which guarantees you an income source. And, as far as instant traffic generation is concerned – PPC Traffic comes above the rest.