The numbers don’t get thrown around very much and I hear more jokes about Bing then I hear suggestions to take it seriously but the fact remains, 24% of users used Alternatives to Google in December 2009. Of course you want your website optimized for Google but you don’t want to forget to find your way over to Bing and the other also-rands to see what they are doing and what they have to say.

Nielson released a new report today that I have added below on search usage from Dec of 2009. Clearly and to no ones suprise Google had maintained its dominant role within the US.

There is a huge group of people using alternative search and this creates a huge question. Are there things I can do to make my business stand out more on Bing and its ilk that are different then what I already do optimize for Google? The easiest answer is to spend some time poking around in those communities and read the posts in search forums, things your SEO Consultant should already be doing (they are doing that right?)

Don’t ever let it be said that bad reviews have no value in marketing your business or nonprofit. It’s a given, when things go wrong businesses can use the momentum from the disaster to motivate employees and speed up critical development. If your on top of this critical thinking you can jump start the motivation even before an analysis of the problem has commenced.

But using disaster to create a marketing campaign might seem like an idea that better resides in outer space. Think what your peers would say if you suddenly showed up on TV or the Web telling your customers you’d dropped the ball and your products are not what they should be. You can just imagine the scene outside your headquarters when the shareholders show up waving torches and brandishing pitchforks yelling for blood. Maybe the best way is to create the campaign around the missteps at the same time you introduce the solution.

Domino’s has done just that, they have created a campaign entitled Pizza Turnaround creating a website and producing a video that celebrates their new pizza while openly showing people who hated the old product. It’s not a new idea Domino’s is using to market themselves, but they do it brilliantly.

Did I call and try one of their new pizzas? You bet I did, and while the real test is will the pizza taste good when I order it 6 months down the road, the one I got the other night was very good and a huge improvement over the last few experiences with this brand. When I think of ordering a pizza for delivery Domino’s is back in the mix because of the taste of their product but without the marketing campaign I would never have called them. Bravo!

Yesterday Pew Internet released another in a long line of in-depth surreys they have complied. The Pew Internet and American Life Project is a nonprofit “fact tank.” This report is simply entitled Internet, Broadband and Cell Phone Statistics

What they found is good news for both consumers and for all those businesses that rely on the internet to drive new business to their websites and also to help maintain their current customer base.

Pew Research said:

In a national survey between November 30 and December 27, 2009, we find:

• 74% of American adults (ages 18 and older) use the internet – a slight drop from our survey in April 2009, which did not include Spanish interviews. At that time we found that 79% of English-speaking adults use the internet.
• 60% of American adults use broadband connections at home – a drop that is within the margin of error from 63% in April 2009.
• 55% of American adults connect to the internet wirelessly, either through a WiFi or WiMax connection via their laptops or through their handheld device like a smart phone.  This figure did not change in a statistically significant way during 2009.

Income and Education benchmarks are good news for small businesses offering products and services marketed or sold on the internet. 83% of those making 50,000 – 74,999 are online and use the internet while their brethren making 75,000+ are represented by a whopping 94% internet usage. Users with some college education use the internet at a rate of 87% and 94% of those with a college education are hooked up to the internet. The future looks bright for online marketing as 93% of those in the 18-29 age group report being hooked up to the internet.

Even if the economy does not roar back this year and instead putt-putts its way into summer there are tremendous opportunities to tap into this vast reservoir of users. I hope everyone will make it their resolution to create Useful, Unique and Updated content for their website, it surely is the number one way to get ranking, find users and service loyal customers.

2010 is shaping up to be a banner year for innovation, and everyone is telling us to look forward to new opportunities in the New Year but few are pointing to concrete examples of those opportunities.

The NTY today ran another story (Adding Fees and Fences) about the growing call from large media producers for pay-as-you-go content sites, these sites will charge a fixed or ala-carte amount for their newly designated premium media content. The usual suspects are falling in behind Rupert Murdoch’s crotchety dark-age leadership with cries that they are being ripped off.

One can’t help but remember the last decade of these same shouts from the likes of the RIAA, and even today the NYT dragged out the dinosaur argument that file swapping was the primary culprit that killed the music industry’s golden egg (shame on your NYT). Murdoch and his greed infested followers are opening the door for all small businesses and organizations to create new and exciting collaborations that will help to quickly fill this void and further send these fossils into the grave.

What this is really about is not what they would have you believe. News Corp and the other relics are struggling to hold on to power, the power to control content from start to finish and they stay awake at night worrying about competition. The titans like Murdoch are really monopolists who talk about the benefits of capitalism and competition while all the while doing there best to stifle it. There is nothing fair or balanced in an economic system that rewards those who practice the craft of monopoly while at the same time punishes innovators and entrepreneurs.

Small business and nonprofits can benefit mightily from the dinosaurs walling themselves off. Small business entrepreneurs can take the lead in creating alliances that create content and products, getting them to market faster and cheaper then the old guard could ever hope to. The water in the kettle is about to boil sounding the call to innovation and over the next couple of months I will share some collaboration ideas to help make these behemoths obsolete.

Over my first cup of coffee this morning I read a couple of articles about Google rolling out its new search feature that adds almost instant results from Twitter, Facebook, Google News and other resources to your search results.

My first thought was oh no now people will see a bunch of crap but I soon realized the results are not part of normal search and that the user must choose to view Real-Time results. I have not seen any figures on how many people click on the specialized search options within Google or any other search engine and for that reason I can’t say how this may or may not disrupt the carefully crafted optimization of websites using SEO to place their sites higher up on search engine result pages (SERP). I do however think at this moment business users and nonprofits need not panic, for companies actively involved in SEO/SEM this may be something to add to your tool box and viewed as an additional opportunity to be seen.

Some people see Twitter and social media as a Siren Call actively seducing your business  into the cliffs and causing certain destruction, I don’t share this view. Twitter and other media properties are more like a huge crowd on the beach waving to you as you sail by, there really is no seduction going on just a huge roar with lots of flailing arms trying to get your attention. If you or your SEO firm use their handy spy glass you can find the gems amongst the teaming crowd, you can part the din to find what offers you the most value and helps bring success to your business or nonprofit.

Try tweeting during business and dinner hours for both the East and West Coast in the US and similar times in other regions of the globe. If search engines are really tuning into Real-Time tweets and its ilk then this is where you stand to get your best return for effort. Try blogging  in the US. between 9:00 and 10:00 AM East Coast time and then tweet and tweet again at 12:15 PM to catch the East Coast lunch crowd, follow upon that will tweets at 4:00 and 6:00 PM Eastern and then monitor traffic and mentions for a week remembering to monitor Latest Results in Google

UPDATE:  Ok I jumped the fence on some of my remarks above. today I see a real time window for Latest Results in the middle of the SERP’s, and it appears that the more popular the event or news the faster the small window scrolls. People not interested in these type of results will quickly learn to skip them and keep their attention on the search task at hand. The new results will distract people who want to be distracted.

I have been reading a book entitled On Writing from Sol Stein and have found it to be a wealth of fine information about writing both fiction and nonfiction. Reading yesterday I came across a little gem that gets to the heart of successful  SEO/ SEM. Commenting on a writers intention Stein says the following

To provide the reader with an experience
that is superior to experiences the reader
encounters in everyday life

This sentence provides small business hoping to get more traffic to their site a clear path and also points out something many people engaged in SEO/SEM may be missing. Search Engines Love Unique Content.

Really! I’m stating the obvious to make a point, crafting your website or blog around unique and superior content feeds both the reader and the search engines with the food they crave. Combining emotion with a well thought out keyword strategy will fit into your business strategy and deliver successful results.

If you look around for examples of this thirst I am talking about you can’t help but fall over a dozen without even trying. Readers are thirsty for information thirsty for compelling knowledge that is useful to their lives and to their questions. One very good example of this thirst can be found offline in the guise of news organizations, these business groups are consumed with a thirst for information the quality of the info is not all that important it’s the uniqueness of the info they want, this enables them to scoop their competitors.

Search engines are thirsty for unique superior content they can use to deliver the searcher the best experience possible. Remember “best experience possible” drives a reader back to the search engine over and over filling the engines pockets with shinny coins, these coins are the reason search engines will reward websites and blog that have unique compelling content with better listings and better listing drive more traffic.

Sidewiki is Google’s new addition to their browser toolbar and it has so far caused a firestorm of Fear and Loathing within the blogging community. Some are up in arms over how this tool might hi-jack company or personal brands and others (myself included) see a huge potential for abuse by individuals and groups but also a huge opportunity to increase transparency within the web. Where Sidewiki will end up is anyone’s guess. Copyright and privacy issues will no doubt be slammed about in the coming months. check out Google’s Sidewiki home page and also Sean Carton’s take on the whole thing.

Frimtropolis is the word that comes to mind as I read results from the Helsinki Institute’s recent release mobile microbloggers struggle to make their postings interesting I would in reviewing the new study from the group of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, Google and Elisa caution readers that they looked only at one microblog and one that seems out of everyday reach for most people “Jaiku.”

Micro Blogging encompasses dozens and dozens of online services such at Twitter, Posterous, Tumblr and the many online groups making up Ning and Mixx. Micro Blogging is huge for all those people who wish to express social and commercial views but don’t have the time to spend hours each day researching and writing about a niche.

As I write the full version has yet to be released to the public, still questions already arise about the study and the conclusions they have made public so far. 1. Why study a micro blog not available to the general public?  2. do people really use micro blogging in hopes of getting comments or are there other reasons, like driving people to websites and connecting with people through direct messaging. 3. do people really need to invest a significant amount of time to have a successful presence?

Digital cameras and blogs are meant for each other and when you put the camera into something like an iPhone you have created the possibility of a roving band of branders. You read correctly a “roving band of branders”

Ask yourself, how can I capture attractive or funny views my products being presented on the street?  The obvious answer is empower your employees to take pictures from the street. Add incentives to the activity of gathering photos being displayed in stores, vendors carts or even a photo of a photo from a magazine stand.

Jump into the role as Hip Maven or Street Crier and get your business noticed by a whole new set of customers. If your wondering how this would help your business if you only offer services and not physical products, well I have the answer for that.

Tokyo Fashion is a simple site that holds a huge example of what is possible with a cheap camera or iPhone in the pocket of employees.  They go out and snap pictures of people on the street, ask a few questions and put it together on their website. The Street Fashion section pulls in people interested in the subject and gives cred to their blog and editorial endeavours.

You too can create a photo section on your website that is relevant to your business even if that business is service oriented. Cobbling together something that is immediate will draw attention. Mashing a few ideas into a regular presentation can push your business into the stratosphere.