Natural Search Seen As A “Growth Area” As Local Search And Mobile Search Gain Traction In UK Markets

admin    Google     Area, Gain, GROWTH, Local, Markets, Mobile, Natural, Search, Seen, Traction

British online marketing consultants recently released their “Online Lead Generation 2008″, detailing business attitudes regarding the effectiveness of natural search, paid advertising (pay-per-click) and e-mail marketing in generating consumer leads. A whopping 94% of the businesses polled indicated that generating online consumer leads through online marketing and Internet advertising was seen as a “growth area”.

The size of this number indicates just how bullish the business community has become about the rise of e-commerce and the efficiencies and effectiveness of online marketing to consumers who are evermore comfortable making purchases and purchase decisions online. Despite, or perhaps because of stalling economic growth across much of North America and Europe, there has been a significant shift to near unanimity in seeing online marketing as an advertising/marketing strategy that is here to stay. Last year, only 84% of respondents indicated that they viewed online marketing as a growth area.

Natural search, the process by which search engine optimization specialists configure web pages, page content and the Internet’s web domain to ensure that a web page is ranked and displayed prominently in the search results on Google, Yahoo! and other search engines was seen as the top means of generating online customer leads, followed closely by sponsored advertising (the pay-per-click advertisements that appear as “sponsored results” on Google) and e-mail marketing. Interestingly, although natural search was seen as outperforming pay-per-click, businesses still spent more of their resources on pay-per-click Internet advertising,

How to proceed with online marketing is becoming perhaps the business-critical for small businesses as consumers switch to their laptops and mobile phones for information about local products and services and the effectiveness of advertising in traditional print, TV and radio diminishes. Recent polling results released by Nielsen/NetSurvey in conjunction with WebVisible show that 86% of internet users search for local products and services online – up from the 70% of internet users who were looking for local products and services over the Internet in 2007.

And looking is turning to buying – not only online, but offline as well. The Nielsen/NetSurvey/WebVisible results show that 90% of the consumer transactions that were initiated through online local searches were completed offline. Evermore technologically proficient consumers and search engine programs that are increasing the ability of consumers to find local products online quickly and easily – be it a local movie listing, restaurant or apparel shop – either from home or from a new generation of mobile phones with GPS technology that pinpoints the consumers geographic location in real time is changing the way people shop.

Consumer research released this month by JupiterResearch supports the view that more and more consumers are turning to the Internet as a preferred method for finding the goods and services they wish to purchase. Polling results from JupiterResearch indicate that there is a 1:6 ratio between purchases made online and offline purchases that are initiated by consumers researching the product or service purchased online.

Given these trends, it is no wonder that businesses large and small are turning their attention to online marketing as an area with potentially huge growth. That companies are still spending more on their pay-per-click advertising rather than focusing their efforts and resources on natural search and search engine optimization is likely an indication of a lag in response to changing consumer behaviour.

The most popular categories of products and services that consumers are currently searching for online tend to be larger ticket items, according to survey results released by Opinion Research Corporation. Over eighty percent of persons searching for goods online reported searching for travel, recreation and leisure goods as well as electronic goods, while fifty-five per cent reported researching clothing and automotive products, while only 24 per cent reported searching for food products. However, with the rising predominance of local search and burgeoning mobile search by consumers tapping into the trend towards smart phones with Internet search capability, online marketing seems destined to become a top marketing tool, if not the top marketing tool, for companies large and small as the responses of businesses to the E-consultancy/Media-Clash online lead generation survey indicate.

My Experience with obtaining natural google ranking

admin    Google     Experience, Google, Natural, obtaining, Ranking

Web site optimisation is the most difficult bit in online business. I know no online business person who would not wish more traffic to his/her site or who would not care about his natural google page ranking. Page ranking is the key to your success, the key to your online income, the determinant of your online business future.

How to go about it? How to get the best natural position in google page ranking? If you are promoting a site with a hugely competitive environment, your most desirable keyword is likely to generate millions of pages. And your page is likely to be in some grim position on page one thousand something. You may despair but there is a way out of it. All you have to do is to analyse all the key words that you would like to obtain for your site. Look at the most popular keywords and sites that managed to obtain first positions for those. It is more likely to be multimillion corporations, which can afford those huge advertising campaigns and links from important respectable sites to their sites as to keep their page ranking going.

You can be smart though and find a way out of this situation. The most popular key words generate untargeted traffic and most likely you will not need to be on the first position for those. If you narrow your thoughts down you can find very specific targeted keywords that can bring people who are already ready to buy your product. The chances are that the competition for those keywords is not so intense either. Do a search again and you will see that all those big corporations do not always come up in searches for very specific targeted keywords. And they do not need to be there. If they are attracting untargeted traffic they are likely to attract clients from there without thinking about targeting their campaigns. So you are making your entry to this market through the backyard – being smart and clever and using very targeted keywords campaign.

Once you have established your keywords, you will have do decide, which page you are going to move. Your main moving page should contain all your chosen keywords selected as headings and marked in bold. It always sucks to move the first page, as you will have to place your SEO text somewhere on this page and bold your keywords, invariably spoiling your perfect design. But you will have to find your way out of it for there is no other way in moving your site. You can choose a page within your site but this method has its disadvantage. Your chosen page will come up first in all searches. And users have only one second to decide whether they want to stay on your site or navigate away. By moving an internal SEO page you are likely to increase your bounce rate and this will slow your business down.

Don’t forget to include as many articles as you can that contain your chosen keywords in internal pages of your site. Googlebots do take notice of them and once they have read the keywords they will authomatically move your page up in ranking.

There is much more to be said about moving sites in google. I promote web hosting companies and online dating agencies and know how difficult it is to move up in google rankings. I hope that my advice was somewhat useful to people how would like to promote their webpages. 

How to Obtain Natural Links and Get Good Page Rank from Google

admin    Google     From, Good, Google, links, Natural, Obtain, Page, Rank

If you want to make sure that your website becomes visible in search engines, then you have to do one important thing: search engine optimization. However, this activity itself is very broad. There are a lot of things that you need to do such as link building.

Link building proves to be one of the most effective methods in increasing your page rank and traffic. When other websites link to you, you gain a vote of confidence, which means your website, especially your content, is relevant to your chosen niche and contains valuable information.

There are different types of link development. These include one-way link building, reciprocal linking, and three-way linking. If you want to get the nod of approval from Google, you may want to concentrate on one-way linking.

Why One-way Linking?

In one-way linking, you get inbound links from those websites that benefit from your web pages. A blogger, for example, may have found great tips on your website, which he or she thinks is worth sharing to his or her reader. He or she then links to your web page and redirects his or her visitors to it. The linking process turns out to be natural since you don’t beg for the blogger to do it for you in the first place.

One-way linking is also a lot better than reciprocal linking. Google believes that those who do this have already reached an agreement with other online marketers, without even considering the quality of the link—if the information there would be beneficial to their respective Internet visitors. Those who do reciprocal linking are also prone to land at link farms, which may just get them penalized by Google.

Three-way linking, on the other hand, is more complicated, and it offers almost the same kinds of disadvantages as reciprocal linking.

How to Go about It

Though one-way linking is the surest way to get a good rank from Google, it doesn’t really mean that it’s easy to achieve. It will take a very long time before you can get these one-way links for your web pages.

Nevertheless, you can do something to at least speed the process up and obtain inbound links from various websites (Google prefers diversity in the domains of your inbound links). For one, you have to make sure that your web pages contain very useful information. You can set up blogs, tips, resources, and tools that you think would be helpful for a lot of Internet visitors.

You also need to keep track of your web page links. See to it that they are working perfectly. Besides not being able to send your message across Internet users, you would get a negative mark from Google. This search engine wants to ensure that all websites are functioning properly.

Because of the demands of one-way link development, you may want to seek help from SEO professionals. They have ideas, knowledge, and training on this aspect. You can assure yourself that there will be people who will be looking after the growth of your website.

Chinese Choices: Us Treasuries Or Foreign Natural Resources Or Domestic Subsidies

admin    Google's Nexus One     Chinese, Choices, Domestic, Foreign, Natural, Resources, Subsidies, Treasuries

Chinese Choices: US Treasuries or Foreign Natural Resources or Domestic Subsidies

Vinod Dar, February 2009

The US-China nexus is, arguably, the most strategically vital in the global economy at present. The nexus entails China buying US debt, especially Treasuries, so Americans can keep buying Chinese manufactured goods, especially consumer goods. It is vendor financing on an epic scale. The nexus depends on the American assumption that China has no better alternative for its foreign surplus than to buy US Treasuries and the Chinese assumptions that Americans will keep  increasing imports from China and that US Treasuries are a house built on granite and the safest place to warehouse very large amounts of surplus money. These assumptions are now becoming assailable.

The great majority of Americans with discretionary income are conserving cash by reducing consumption, including consumption of Chinese goods because of a lack of confidence. So are anxious Brazilians and Indians; as are despairing Russians(whose last economic calamity was just a decade ago) and nervous Europeans; as well as pessimistic Japanese(who vividly recall their stagnant decade of the 1990s; things are much worse now for Japan, which is entering what ,in casual conversation anyway, is  a depression); and indeed even worried Chinese, who are significantly increasing their savings since they have no safety net. There is a global erosion of confidence, made worse by every new stimulus program, which in the US is an income transfer program from the productive and prudent to the unproductive and irresponsible. US Treasuries have no upside and considerable downside, in the opinion of many American investors(including this author). The Chinese have two emerging alternatives for their money.

Chinese foreign reserves are still expanding briskly even as global trade compresses but this expansion is more a reflection of Chinese  economic weakness rather than strength….exports are declining fast as is internal consumption so imports are plunging.

China has lost 20 million jobs in this cycle already. It needs to create 11 million net  new jobs annually to absorb fresh entrants into its labor force. Reverse migration in China from cities back to villages is growing rapidly as unemployed villagers return home to subsistence, or worse, farming( China and the US have about the same amount of arable land but over 700 million generally unskilled and often physically frail Chinese work this land), causing  rural stress and poverty to soar, which is a prescription for dispersed but endemic peasant unrest. China’s urban real estate markets are crumbling causing financial distress within the newly born middle class.  Medium sized Chinese companies seem to be borrowing at very low interest rates not to invest in plant, equipment and product development  but to speculate on the stock market( borrow at 3%; hope for quick 10 to 20 % gain from flipping stocks; pocket the win; do it again…..who needs money managers). The Chinese Communists cannot simultaneously  suppress rural and urban unrest. They know that unless the population is pacified with jobs and opportunities for wealth creation, they will lose their political monopoly.  Force feeding the Chinese economy with even more generally unused or underused infrastructure, making it easier for real estate developers to borrow money, providing agricultural loans to farmers and agricultural companies who do not seem to have much debt service capability, expanding the Navy,  has been the Chinese response to impel domestic consumption higher. This kind of force feeding has the political benefit of being highly visible, keeps corrupt party officials and crooked developers well fed , the Military placated  and can absorb hundreds of billions of dollars very easily. It’s a choice between lending Americans the money to buy Chinese goods or lending Chinese the money to buy Chinese goods.

The second and more potent option is for the Chinese to engage in global natural resource financing to augment and “internalize”  Chinese resource supply chains, enhance China’s geostrategic position and brand  and gain foreign policy leverage over several nations. China has ready cash; the World’s natural resource industries need it. The fit is superior. It allows China, potentially, to transform its   government investment model from passive investor/unwelcome exporter to aggressive financier/welcome importer. There is little marketing risk for China since its appetite for natural resources is  very great. It can readily consume the output from its investments. There is also no technology risk. China has multiple avenues at its disposal ranging from its SWF to state owned or controlled companies to international  companies domiciled in China where the Government acts as merchant banker to direct government to government transactions.

In recent days the Chinese have invested, via Chinalco,  over $19 billion( joint ventures and convertible bonds) in one of Australia’s, and the world’s,  largest natural resource companies(active on every continent in aluminum, copper, iron ore, industrial minerals, gold, diamonds).The Chinese have also put a few billion more into other Australian natural resource companies and projects. The most significant transaction, however, is the $25 billion deal with 2 of the largest Russian petroleum companies. This deal gives China 300,000 barrels of oil per day for 20 years. The Russian companies will use the money to develop oil fields and prospects in Eastern Siberia( enormous, high quality, exploration potential), refineries and build an oil pipeline. This transaction is a Volumetric Production Payment(VPP) which allows producers and financiers to do a deal despite wide differences in their view of prices because the two parties have different risk adjusted discount rates. Quantities, delivery  obligations and schedules(daily, monthly, annual, life of contract) , collateral, performance warranties and penalties are part of the contract but price is not. The US oil and gas industry is very familiar with VPPs, which are often considered last resort financing for small and medium E&P companies generally shut out from conventional financing. The money( it is debt, not equity) is usually paid upfront while the oil and gas is delivered over a number of years. The underlying oil and gas reserve(proven producing and proven undeveloped for the most part) is the collateral .VPPs require extensive due diligence and close monitoring and frequent reporting because exaggeration, fraud, bribes, etc are not unknown.  They have  been viewed as a kind of subprime financing for E&P companies. The IRR of VPPs the author is familiar with has ranged from high single digits to high teens, sometimes in the low 20% range; the default rate has been low and capital risk has been mitigated by seizure of the underlying assets which can be readily operated by third parties or sold.

For China, VPPs have the twin attractions of being highly expandable(scalable) and diversified. If the Chinese can get average IRRs of 6 to 8 % on  VPPs  with safety not much worse than to US Treasuries plus several strategic benefits then, of course, Treasuries yielding 3 % with important bubble and currency  risk become quite unattractive. Certainly the search, transaction and monitoring costs of VPPs are much higher than for Treasuries  but the Chinese can afford to grow or rent the talent and transactional infrastructure needed to execute on global scale.

The world could, quite easily, absorb $200 to $300 billion a year in Chinese VPPs.  For example, the oil sands in Canada(Athabasca) and Venezuela(Orinoco) are excellent candidates: the resource is vast, very capital intensive, unusually long lived and production is a mining/ manufacturing process rather than a drilling process. Venezuela in particular would salivate over a $10 to $30 billion VPP transaction with China. Other VPPs prospects include onshore oil in the Sudan and Colombia ; deepwater oil in Brazil; Natural gas in Iran, Myanmar and East Timor; bauxite in Guinea and Jamaica; coal in South Africa and Colombia; Uranium in Kazakhstan.

China has a decade left to become a global  power and serious rival to the US. It is still a poor, unskilled,  country and its demographic profile is the second worst(Russia has the worst) in the world amongst nations of consequence ( more on this in another essay : China’s labor force will peak in decade; a quarter of all people in world over 65  will be Chinese by 2025 but only a fifth of the labor force will be Chinese; increasing “shortage” of women; India is projected to become the most populous nation by 2025). Time is not on China’s side. It must make profound and correct strategic choices, otherwise its national aspirations cannot be met. Its window of opportunity is surprisingly narrow. It cannot afford to squander treasure or time.

If the Chinese come to believe(this author does not know what the Chinese believe) that the US Treasuries are a house built on limestone , not granite, US protectionism is going to increase and the American consumer will engage in cash conservation for years, not months, then the US-China nexus will crumble and with it will crumble US Treasuries. The demand from a former  advisor to the Chinese central bank that the US guarantee its debt to the Chinese  so the Chinese are protected from “reckless policies” is a signal. Freedom is having options. Chinese options may be growing while ours may be shrinking.

China has the money to buy American debt at its current pace or increase force feeding of its own economy or pursue international resource investing on an epic scale. It does not the money to do all 3 things well on great scale. The Chinese are cautious and patient but they are not dabblers. If the Chinese ,over the next 2 to 3 years, conclude that ,strategically, swift growth in domestic consumption and international resource capitalism are big and attractive options and decide to markedly phase down investing in US government debt, then what will the US response be?