Why Viral Marketing Is Essential To Low-Cost Search Marketing
By Jennifer Laycock
Editor, Search Engine Guide

Dave's Comments: A new spin on an old concept - viral marketing. Offline it's called word-of-mouth or "buzz" marketing. Online, as Jennifer Laycock nicely points out in this article, one of its most useful forms is the ability to create unsolicited incoming links to your Web site or blog. A nice read full of common sense ideas for the small online business entreprenuer.

"For several years now I've been harping on the idea that the best way to build links in a search marketing campaign is to stop requesting them and to start earning them. While many within the search marketing industry have been pushing this philosophy for quite some time, it's only been the last year or so that folks have started giving that concept a name: viral marketing."

Read the entire article at:
Why Viral Marketing Is Essential To Low-Cost Search Marketing

Technorati Tags: Business, Internet, Marketing

Podcasting, Podcasts in eNewsletters, and Podcast Search

Dave's Comments: Get a crash course on how to create a podcast (it's really simple), how to include one in a standard text eNewsletter to give it more zing, and how to find/listen to existing podcasts, as well as how to register your own podcast in the latest greatest podcast search engine! Just click on the links below - in 10 minutes you'll be a podcast expert!

Podcasts in E-Newsletters: Give Your Articles a Voice
By Karen Gedney
Clickz B2B Email Marketing
(Includes the basics of creating a podcast)

Podzinger Podcast Search Engine
(The latest, greatest podcast search engine)

About Podzinger
(How does a search engine search AUDIO info? Find out here!)

And for those who want to know ALL about podcasting, here's a link to an extensive, detailed description on Wikipedia:

Wikipedia - Podcasting

Technorati Tags: Business, Internet, Marketing

Search Engine Marketers Spent $5.75 Billion in 2005, According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO)

Dave's Comments: A leading US SEM organization has just released it's 2005 Search Engine Marketing report. It includes all forms of of SEM - search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine advertising. The growth in this space continues at a breakneck pace, still dominated by Google and Yahoo!.

"Advertisers in the U.S. and Canada spent $5.75 billion on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) in 2005, a 44 percent increase over 2004 spending, according to a report released today by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), a non-profit professional association working to increase awareness and promote the value of Search Engine Marketing worldwide.

The report, “The State of Search Engine Marketing 2005,” also projects that SEM spending in North America will reach $11 billion in 2010. The annual totals include payments to search engines and search-related media companies, search engine marketing agencies and in-house expenditures in support of such programs. The programs include paid placement, paid inclusion, organic search engine optimization and search engine marketing technology platforms."

Read the full press release at:
The State of Search Engine Marketing (SEMPO)

Technorati Tags: Business, Internet, Marketing