Alternatives to Google Search: Yes There Are Some |  |
- Alternatives to Google Search: Yes There Are Some
- The Most Important Page In Your Corporate Identity Manual
- Win FREE Business Cards From MOO
- Managing Your Ideas
- Online Business Thrives with Proper Tips
| Alternatives to Google Search: Yes There Are Some Posted: 12 Apr 2012 01:00 PM PDT We get so focused on Google that it’s easy to forget there are alternatives to Google search. Granted, the alternatives are not nearly as popular. At 66% market share and 11.7 billion searches during the month of February 2012 alone, Google clearly is the leader. But other search engines are worth understanding — both from the perspective of when you are a searcher for information, and from the perspective of a site owner knowing that visitors may come from those other search engines. And just in case you are tempted to think ‘hey, a search engine is a search engine – how different could they be?’ let’s take a deeper dive. According to Comscore, the top 5 search engines according to volume of search and market share are: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Ask and AOL. However, when you look underneath the hood, there are really just two big players: Microsoft’s Bing and Google — and a few smaller players. Let’s break them down further: We all know the Google search engine, right? But did you know that Google actually has many search engines? For instance there’s a Google search engine just for books. There’s an image search engine that lets you put in the URL of the image or upload one from your computer, and find the same image across the Web (if you’re a photographer concerned about people ripping off your images, the image search engine may become your next best friend). There’s a full-text U.S. patent search.
For site owners, Google offers a Webmaster Tools dashboard to help you keep tabs on any problems with your site in the Google index. For instance, it can tell you if malware has been detected. And don’t forget to check out Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (PDF) so you can make the most of traffic from Google to your site. Matt Cutts is the head of the Google Web spam team and he regularly gives information to the community about Google’s search practices. In many ways he is the public face of Google’s search outreach. His videos are particularly useful and for the most part understandable by small business owners. You can find them at the Google Webmaster channel on YouTube. Bing Bing, a search engine from Microsoft, is the largest and most well established after Google. Yahoo, the original search giant from the 1990s, is also “powered by Bing” search results as of 2011. (Therefore, for our purposes, Yahoo will be lumped in with Bing.) According to Comscore, Bing and Yahoo together accounted for 5.1 Billion searches in February 2012 — or 29% of the market. Bing has been growing steadily over the past few years. Bing emphasizes that it provides answers, not search results. Many people may find the distinction difficult to grasp, however. Bing.com has a stunning visual interface (a great big background image that changes daily greets you on the home page — it’s interactive, too):
Like Google, Bing offers a Webmaster Toolbox that gives valuable information about your website, including crawl errors. There’s also a Bing Webmaster Center blog written by Duane Forrester, a Bing Senior Product Manager, that’s pretty understandable and useful for small business owners and managers. There’s also this Getting Started checklist. Ask.com includes a search engine and also has a human-powered question and answer feature. A couple of years ago Ask.com stopped investing in its own search technology, and although it’s a bit of mystery whose search results Ask uses, most observers say Google. Since then Ask has been declining — albeit very slowly — in market share. It’s now at about 3% market share, with roughly half a billion searches each month. AOL AOL‘s search constitutes a little over 1.5% of the market. It appears to be using Google’s search technology. So once again, we’re back to Google. Thus, as you can see, Google and Bing together make up most of the market share. So, what are the others? All are relatively small (but Google once was small, too). Let’s take a look at a few of them: Duck Duck Go Duck Duck Go is a startup search engine is competing by leveraging the public’s recent concern over Google’s privacy policies. According to Fred Wilson, a principal of Union Square Ventures, a venture capital backer of Duck Duck Go, other vendors should do the same, saying "We should encourage web and mobile services to lead with their privacy practices and let users vote with their feet. This is an opportunity for new web services who can use privacy as a basis for competition as Duck Duck Go does." Duck Duck Go says it does not collect or share browsing history, and it articulates understandable privacy policies, including one that is illustrated and starts with this image:
Click for milestone explanations of above traffic chart Blekko Blekko is a search engine launched in late 2010 that emphasizes quality of search results, over quantity. Blekko says it excludes sites from its index that are low quality or designed “solely to game search engines.” Blekko uses human feedback from users, who tag pages so that returned results include only quality content that is spam free. Most users will jump for joy at the absence of most scraper sites. However, Blekko’s human-system tends to exclude or give a low rank to results that others consider relevant and useful, particularly on topics its users may not be all that familiar with. (For instance, on small business topics its results may be overly restrictive — and less useful than Google or Bing.) But they get high marks for having a comparison engine where you can compare Google, Bing and Blekko results for particular keywords. Blekko also gives a lot of SEO data about sites (not just your own).
In September of 2011 Blekko closed a $30 Million funding round with Yandex, the leading Russian search engine, as an investor. Gibiru This is a search engine that claims to be anonymous and uncensored. Actual queries are handled by a modified Google algorithm, but the company says results are not targeted or filtered, and that tracking is limited. For those especially concerned about privacy, you might want to give Gibiru a whirl. Conclusion If you play the odds as a website owner, you’ll place most of your attention on Google, and then Bing. Invest some effort to make sure your site does as well as possible in both. Remember, search engine optimization is a marathon, not a race — so look to be in it for the long haul. As a searcher, if privacy is a big concern, or the absence of spam results is important, you may wish to check out Duck Duck Go, Blekko or Gibiru. From Small Business Trends |
| The Most Important Page In Your Corporate Identity Manual Posted: 12 Apr 2012 10:30 AM PDT Every business should have a corporate identity manual. A corporate identity manual defines how your company's brand, image and messaging is delivered to the public and particularly to your key audiences. But before we answer the burning question of what’s the most important page in your corporate identity manual, let's dig a little deeper.
Corporate identity is not the same as corporate image. Clive Chajet, writing in Corporate Image, makes these distinctions: Corporate image is the perception of the company by its various audiences, i.e., how it appears to outsiders such as the financial community or potential consumers. Corporate identity is what the corporation chooses to use to shape those perceptions. To make it easy for employees to present the corporate identity consistently, many businesses publish a corporate identity manual. A corporate identity manual is simply a set of instructions for how to present things like logos and how to describe the business accurately. Identity = Brand Laurence Ackerman, a former partner at the legendary design firm, Anspach Grossman Portugal, says that besides comprehensive design standards, companies manage their identity through:
As a company grows and more people are involved, the very essence of the brand is being expressed by multiple managers and communicators. How do we reign in all of this and maintain standards, as well as build upon a brand as the company and its story evolves and grows? The corporate identity manual is the critical tool for this. It positions the company, no matter how big or small. The importance of consistent typography, color use, logo placement and such cannot be taken for granted. These are all laid out in the corporate identity manual. Good identity manuals help designers and communication managers establish a visual voice for the company that may include photography libraries and image standards as well as professional publication templates. These guidelines build a more powerful corporate identity that in turn influences the public and ultimately the company's corporate image. The Real Power of Your ID Manual When I was the manager of corporate communications at an insurance company, I inherited a new logo and an unyielding binder full of identity standards and recommendations. (This was back in the days when you had to print everything and a PDF was not possible.) The "work in progress" standards were too cumbersome and the page length made it prohibitive to print. So I sat down and sifted through the content and prioritized everything to see how I could get the final manual down to 16 pages. Once the corporate identity manual was published, life as the internal "logo cop" and defender-of-the-brand became easier – but not in the way that I had expected. I thought everyone would now follow the carefully worded rules and exacting details that we had labored over in writing and designing the manual. What I found was that most people didn't actually read the document. They just called me with their questions and asked me what the rules were. So the manual became my reference guide. It kept me on track, consistent and more importantly it became the law of the land within the company. Once I had the manual in place I could call the vice president of pensions and say, with confidence, that the logo could not be published with that drop shadow against a dark colored background because it says so on page 4. And why would he listen to me? Because, on the first page of the corporate identity manual, there was a signed letter from the president of the company introducing and endorsing the branding standards. That was the most important page in the manual.
Manual Photo via Shutterstock From Small Business Trends |
| Win FREE Business Cards From MOO Posted: 12 Apr 2012 08:04 AM PDT Would you like to join the ranks of companies like Klout and Airbnb and make your offline brand more remarkable? Want your business cards to stand out and make a genuine impact when you hand them out? How about $1000 worth of business cards absolutely FREE for you and your colleagues? If this sounds good, then read on. . .
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Customers can either choose from one of the MOO designer Business Card templates to personalize and customize, or alternatively, you can upload your own designs and artwork to create truly unique, creative products. Using MOO's unique 'Printfinity' technology, you can feature a different image on every card at no extra cost. Contest Prize One lucky company will win $1000 of credit to spend at MOO under a new MOO Business Services account.
Who Is Eligible? The contest is eligible to companies with 10 or more employees only. (Existing MOO Business Services customers cannot enter this contest.) How To Win! Simply enter here. It's really that easy. Deadline To Enter Your form submission must be completed by 11:59 pm PT (Los Angeles time) on May 12, 2012. Selecting The Winner To keep things fair, the winner will be selected randomly by Random.org and will be announced here at Small Business Trends. Be sure to read the full terms and conditions. Good luck! ENTER CONTEST HERE. From Small Business Trends |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2012 05:30 AM PDT Ideas need management just like people. "Ideas are nothing without implementation," says Anita Campbell, Founder of Small Business Trends, in “Innovation Management Helps Make Your Idea Reality.” It's true. When it comes to business, it's not enough to just dream.
But how do you take your latest idea out of your head, off the paper, beyond the initial brainstorming and into the market and fabric of your company? Focus On One Thing, One Bite At A TimeYou may have 51 great ideas, but choose one to work on for the next 1-3 months, and then get started. Focusing on a single idea helps get you beyond analysis paralysis. Once You Have Your Idea, Dive Into ResearchUse this step to get a clearer vision for how this latest idea impacts your business and your bottom line. Meet with other companies and business owners that have done similar things. This step gives you confidence and helps you gain a realistic perspective on what it will take. Set A Plan For The Next Two WeeksDecide what you will accomplish for the next 14 weeks because it's easier to take baby steps. As Og Mandino says in The Greatest Salesmen In The World:
Choose Your Funding OptionsDepending on your business model, you may choose to pursue a variety of funding options including bank loans, investors as well as self funding. Anita Campbell and Joel Libava refer to crowd-sourcing as funding opportunities for small business owners. In “Got A Big Idea? Crowdsourcing Websites Help Bring It To Market” Anita mentions two sites where you can submit your ideas, receive feedback as well as manufacturing support. The inventor retains 25 to 35% of the money once the item comes to market but they have a chance to get in front of companies like HSN, Bed, Bath and Beyond and Toys “R” Us. In the “Future of Books: Will Publishers Weather the Changes?” Joel refers to crowd-sourcing as an option for self-published authors. It gives you a chance to publish your book debt free. In turn, you have your next marketing piece — a book, as well as sponsors to help you publish and promote it — because your success becomes their success. Of course, to get the best impact, these relationships have to be managed, but what doesn't? Ultimately, if you have a dream, you're in the business of:
It simply comes with the territory.
From Small Business Trends |
| Online Business Thrives with Proper Tips Posted: 12 Apr 2012 02:30 AM PDT Your online business can thrive with the proper tools and techniques. Whether your company exists completely online or heavily utilizes the Web for some basic function like marketing, be sure you know the tips that can bring you success. Getting StartedChoose a small business domain. When launching your small business Website, be sure not to fall victim to any of the above mistakes. Choosing the right domain name for your business isn’t rocket science. Watch the video on this post as well. SelfAssemblySites Raise capital on the Web. With the possibility of crowdfunding your business online, a whole new approach to startups is born. It’s a new environment to navigate for entrepreneurs and investors alike. Here are some of the important points. You’re the Boss Getting FoundFind online marketing success. How do you use Search Engine Optimization and PR in your online business? Both can be useful in your search marketing efforts. Don’t forget that getting your business found online may be your most critical job. WebMaster-Success Get Google credibility. Just like in the offline world, credibility for your online business is critical. On the Web, there is a gold standard for this credibility and its name is Google. What does Google think of your business? Small Business Trends Digital MarketingLeverage your blog for prospecting. You’ll make fewer cold calls with the right blogging approach. Here’s a way to use traditional sales techniques with online tools. There’s also an accompanying video that every serious online business owner should see. Ryan Hanley Get help with online marketing. One New York-based company is offering small businesses the tools to manage their online presence with ease. Your online efforts just got a whole lot easier. Take a look at this new approach. New York Daily News Online PresenceDrive traffic to ecommerce sites. There is no magic to creating ecommerce businesses that attract traffic. Simply understand the key methods of driving traffic and then create a strategy that works for you. Here are some core components. PixelCrayons Rethink your business site design. One Web designer takes us on a brief tour through his company’s latest site redesign to have a look at how his business changed its online personality and why. Website Designer Social OutreachBe realistic about Google Plus. Not all social networks are created equal. Here’s another look at a bold new challenge to the Facebook throne. It’s always risky to pick winners and losers in the social media arena, but make sure you understand the channels you use. Fast Company Use bookmarking to your advantage. If you don’t use social bookmarking to your advantage, you definitely should. You may have heard of some of the sites on the above list, but check out some of the others as well (our sister site BizSugar among them!) to see what you’re missing. Moneytized From Small Business Trends |
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