China is getting ready to take on SEO in a major way and is ready to invest major dollars towards a fast growing industry according to the latest report released by Nasdaq. Baidu, the biggest search engine in China which holds a massive 84% market share is reportedly investing as much as $470 million dollars now through the end of 2015 into search engine optimization (SEO). Baidu plans to develop an industry which will train as many as 100,000 new search engine specialists as part of the game plan. The ultimate goal is to help both small and larger companies expand and grow their businesses through adaptation of SEO. With 485 million users in China, there is a huge opportunity for growth in an emerging market and Baidu (www.baidu.com) expects that by planning the adaptation of SEO, it will help raise awareness and increase usage for its online paid advertising services. This news is certainly quite interesting. It's pretty amazing how much the SEO industry has evolved over the years versus what it used to be at the very early stages. What used to be an underground, rarely talked about approach to simply making websites rank higher in Google, has transformed to a whole new level of mainstream. The demand for SEO in the United States has been growing fast, as competition keeps growing and getting tougher. Search engine marketing is a crucial element in 2011 and will continue to become even more important throughout the years, no matter what type of business you operate. Baidu is recognizing the need and wants to set the standard in China. And with such an enormous market share, I have no doubt they will accomplish what they intend, while creating thousands of new jobs in the industry.

With the popularity of SEO, social media, and the boom of the online industry, competition is becoming fiercer than ever. It is no longer common to find someone outside of the marketing world who doesn't understand the basic fundamentals of search engine marketing. Back in 2001-2002, all you needed was a website utilizing basic SEO elements and a few links and Google would love you and you could outrank your competition. Fast forward to today, the game has completely changed. Now, Google will likely ignore you until you're able to prove your website deserves to rank in their search results based on their criteria. With over 100 factors taken into account into the Google search engine algorithm to determine how a website is ranked, this has lead to new level of abuse and capitalization from certain individuals and companies to try to game the system. Search engines are constantly changing the way their algorithm works in order to fight spam and tactics that violate their guidelines. Violation of these terms can lead to a website being penalized or in worst case scenario, banned. Social media has become a key player in influencing the impact of search engine marketing and Google has openly stated they are now considering social signals in their ranking algorithm. With the popularity of social media networks such as Digg, Twitter, Facebook, and most recently, the introduction of Google+, the level of abuse is rising from underground groups to manipulate and find ways to trick search engines. Most recently, new social media company Plussem.com began offering a service where they utilize a group of people to vote for the website of your choice on Google+ in exchange for a fee. Looking for 50 votes? It'll cost you just 20 bucks. Want 2,000 votes? You can get it by paying the equivalent cost of an XBOX 360. While this idea sounds enticing, and may work for a short time frame, the MIT engineers behind the scenes at the Google Plex are most likely working day and night trying to figure out a way to prevent abuse from such services. My thought on this topic is, if you do get any type of benefit, it will be short lived. This type of manipulation is nothing new. Dig further around the web and you will find all kinds of paid services where you can buy social media love. Let's take a look at the service Subvert and Profit as an example. This site offers everything from paid YouTube to Twitter votes. Not only can advertisers benefit from this, but social media users can also make money from it. Want your message to be spread across Twitter? You can do that too, with a service like Sponsored Tweets. The rise of these types of services is here to stay. While these services can make you appear popular to your audience, participating in these networks will not give you a long term benefit or a spike in search engine traffic or rankings. Focus on building buzz-worthy and interesting content your audience will naturally react to. Utilize SEO best practices, participate in social networks to build your networks and you will build your reputation online as an authority on your topic. Remember, content is KING.

With the popularity of SEO, social media, and the boom of the online industry, competition is becoming fiercer than ever. It is no longer common to find someone outside of the marketing world who doesn't understand the basic fundamentals of search engine marketing. Back in 2001-2002, all you needed was a website utilizing basic SEO elements and a few links and Google would love you and you could outrank your competition. Fast forward to today, the game has completely changed. Now, Google will likely ignore you until you're able to prove your website deserves to rank in their search results based on their criteria. With over 100 factors taken into account into the Google search engine algorithm to determine how a website is ranked, this has lead to new level of abuse and capitalization from certain individuals and companies to try to game the system. Search engines are constantly changing the way their algorithm works in order to fight spam and tactics that violate their guidelines. Violation of these terms can lead to a website being penalized or in worst case scenario, banned. Social media has become a key player in influencing the impact of search engine marketing and Google has openly stated they are now considering social signals in their ranking algorithm. With the popularity of social media networks such as Digg, Twitter, Facebook, and most recently, the introduction of Google+, the level of abuse is rising from underground groups to manipulate and find ways to trick search engines. Most recently, new social media company Plussem.com began offering a service where they utilize a group of people to vote for the website of your choice on Google+ in exchange for a fee. Looking for 50 votes? It'll cost you just 20 bucks. Want 2,000 votes? You can get it by paying the equivalent cost of an XBOX 360. While this idea sounds enticing, and may work for a short time frame, the MIT engineers behind the scenes at the Google Plex are most likely working day and night trying to figure out a way to prevent abuse from such services. My thought on this topic is, if you do get any type of benefit, it will be short lived. This type of manipulation is nothing new. Dig further around the web and you will find all kinds of paid services where you can buy social media love. Let's take a look at the service Subvert and Profit as an example. This site offers everything from paid YouTube to Twitter votes. Not only can advertisers benefit from this, but social media users can also make money from it. Want your message to be spread across Twitter? You can do that too, with a service like Sponsored Tweets. The rise of these types of services is here to stay. While these services can make you appear popular to your audience, participating in these networks will not give you a long term benefit or a spike in search engine traffic or rankings. Focus on building buzz-worthy and interesting content your audience will naturally react to. Utilize SEO best practices, participate in social networks to build your networks and you will build your reputation online as an authority on your topic. Remember, content is KING.

With the popularity of SEO, social media, and the boom of the online industry, competition is becoming fiercer than ever. It is no longer common to find someone outside of the marketing world who doesn't understand the basic fundamentals of search engine marketing. Back in 2001-2002, all you needed was a website utilizing basic SEO elements and a few links and Google would love you and you could outrank your competition. Fast forward to today, the game has completely changed. Now, Google will likely ignore you until you're able to prove your website deserves to rank in their search results based on their criteria. With over 100 factors taken into account into the Google search engine algorithm to determine how a website is ranked, this has lead to new level of abuse and capitalization from certain individuals and companies to try to game the system. Search engines are constantly changing the way their algorithm works in order to fight spam and tactics that violate their guidelines. Violation of these terms can lead to a website being penalized or in worst case scenario, banned. Social media has become a key player in influencing the impact of search engine marketing and Google has openly stated they are now considering social signals in their ranking algorithm. With the popularity of social media networks such as Digg, Twitter, Facebook, and most recently, the introduction of Google+, the level of abuse is rising from underground groups to manipulate and find ways to trick search engines. Most recently, new social media company Plussem.com began offering a service where they utilize a group of people to vote for the website of your choice on Google+ in exchange for a fee. Looking for 50 votes? It'll cost you just 20 bucks. Want 2,000 votes? You can get it by paying the equivalent cost of an XBOX 360. While this idea sounds enticing, and may work for a short time frame, the MIT engineers behind the scenes at the Google Plex are most likely working day and night trying to figure out a way to prevent abuse from such services. My thought on this topic is, if you do get any type of benefit, it will be short lived. This type of manipulation is nothing new. Dig further around the web and you will find all kinds of paid services where you can buy social media love. Let's take a look at the service Subvert and Profit as an example. This site offers everything from paid YouTube to Twitter votes. Not only can advertisers benefit from this, but social media users can also make money from it. Want your message to be spread across Twitter? You can do that too, with a service like Sponsored Tweets. The rise of these types of services is here to stay. While these services can make you appear popular to your audience, participating in these networks will not give you a long term benefit or a spike in search engine traffic or rankings. Focus on building buzz-worthy and interesting content your audience will naturally react to. Utilize SEO best practices, participate in social networks to build your networks and you will build your reputation online as an authority on your topic. Remember, content is KING.

In a matter of weeks, website owners will be able to insert the all new Google +1 Button to their websites, according to an announcement at the most recent Google I/O conference in San Francisco, California. During the event, Google gave a sneak peak at what the +1 button misoprostol abortion will look like, and provided examples of functionality and data analytics webmasters will have access to. The +1 button will look very similar to the current Facebook 'Like' Button, and will provide a greater amount of behind the scenes information to webmasters that Facebook/Twitter currently do not. In terms of functionality, +1 will allow website visitors to endorse either a web page or an article, ultimately giving Google the signal of quality content that is being voted on by others. The installation of the actual +1 button will be quite easy and as simple as adding a piece of HTML code provided by Google to the page of your choice. The button will be available in different types and sizes, depending on your preference. During the I/O Conference, Google mentioned the following statistics will be available to webmasters using Google Webmaster Tools after incorporating the +1 button on their website: Demographic Information (by age and sex) Number of +1 votes, broken down page by page User location Language Article impressions and click-thru metrics The data will be available in a graphical interface and offer visual charts to help website owners interpret the information and activity around the content that is being voted on. With the +1 Button set to go live, and likely become available in late May/early June, this could potentially be a major step by Google to make an effort to continue to incorporate social media metrics into their standard search ranking algorithm.  Google's goal is to better understand what content is being shared to help determine quality, and possibly include social factors into their standard organic search algorithm. Additionally, the Bing/Yahoo alliance and Facebook partnership makes Bing a bigger threat to Google as it continues to gradually gain market share, therefore Google is definitely feeling the pressure. It is up for debate whether the new +1 feature will open the door for aggressive SEO tactics and manipulation to try to game the system. Ultimately though, quality content remains KING. Ongoing development of buzz-worthy content for your website is about to become more important than ever with the introduction of +1. Get notified when the Google +1 Button becomes available. Sign-up here