U.S. Explicit Core Search

Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in July with 65.1 percent market share, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.1 percent (up 0.2 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 14.4 percent. Ask Network accounted for 2.9 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.5 percent (up 0.1 percentage points).

More than 17.1 billion explicit core searches were conducted in July, up 3 percent versus the prior month. Google Sites ranked first with 11.2 billion searches (up 2 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.8 billion (up 4 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 2.5 billion (up 3 percent). Ask Network delivered 494 million searches (up 3 percent), followed by AOL, Inc. with 251 million (up 5 percent).

The report, from the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, is based on an online survey of 920 companies carried out in February and March. The companies reported a rise in mobile marketing, which accounts for some of the rise in search advertising. Local search was cited as the most significant new trend, though the respondents said behavioral targeting is becoming more important as well. The survey also found that more marketers are outsourcing their SEO and social media to agencies.

The 16% growth figure for search is a slight jump over last year’s 14% rise. Meanwhile, researcher eMarketer predicts an 11.2% jump in search marketing revenues for 2011 vs. 2010 and places the total revenue figure for the end of 2011 at $16.6 billion. That said, eMarketer’s figures refer specifically to U.S. spending, while SEMPO’s refer to North American spending. Below are SEMPO’s estimates for the market over the past few years:

Here are some other findings:

40% of respondents said that the growth of the mobile Internet was “highly significant,” compared with 26% last year.
84% of companies (rather than the figure for agencies, listed above) use Facebook to promote themselves, compared with 73% last year.
75% of companies use Twitter to promote their companies or brands and 52% use LinkedIn.
44% of companies do SEO in-house, compared with 51% last year.
55% are doing social media marketing in-house, compared with 62% last year.

Take a look at the screenshot below. I typed in the letter “S” which appears in a black bolded font, then Google added “kype” which appears in a light gray. Also notice a SERP appeared with the results based on a “Skype” search. As I continued typing, Google continued making suggestions and the SERP updated immediately based on the new predictions. You will also notice the familiar drop down menu of suggested search phrases appears too.

Example of Google’s Predictive Search

How To Turn Predictive Search Off !
Just to the right of your search box it will say “Instant is On”.
Click on that and change it to “Off – Press Enter To Search”.

Why is increasing links important? When other sites link to your site it directs visitors to it and also shows Google and other search engines that you are a legitimate site that’s worthy of some attention. However, the sites that link to you must be relevant to your site. The other site’s topic must be related to yours otherwise Google will see it as dishonest, black hat SEO or spam.

When you have a significant number of relevant links that lead back to your site, you build your online reputation which in turn, will improve your page rank on the search results pages. Increasing your page rank will allow potential customers to see you, rather than your competition, when they search for certain keywords that are relevant to your business. This will help grow your business and boost your profit. However, the question remains, how do you get relevant sites to link to you?

Revenue was $1,601 million for the second quarter of 2010, a two percent increase from
the second quarter of 2009. Income from operations for the second quarter of 2010 was
$175 million, compared to $76 million in the second quarter of 2009. Excluding
restructuring charges of $65 million in the second quarter of 2009 and $10 million in the
second quarter of 2010, income from operations grew 32 percent in the second quarter.

Net income per diluted share for the second quarter of 2010 was $0.15, compared to
$0.10 in the second quarter of 2009.

“We’re pleased that we continued to deliver strong operating income and margin
expansion,” said Yahoo! Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz. “Our search fundamentals
are improving and we posted another quarter of healthy display advertising growth.”

Business Highlights

• Display advertising on Owned and Operated sites continued to perform well, growing
19 percent in the quarter compared to the second quarter of 2009.
• Operating margin expanded from 4.8 percent in the second quarter of 2009 to 11.0
percent in the second quarter of 2010. Excluding restructuring charges of $65 million
in the second quarter of 2009 and $10 million in the second quarter of 2010,
operating margin expanded from 8.9 percent to 11.6 percent.
• Yahoo! deepened its integration with Facebook through Yahoo! Pulse – now users
can link their Yahoo! and Facebook accounts and view and share updates with
friends across both networks.
• Yahoo! launched new Mail and Messenger apps for the Android platform, as well as
HTML-5-based Mail and News sites for the iPhone.

Google reports operating income, operating margin, net income, and earnings per share (EPS) on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. The non-GAAP measures, as well as free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, are described below and are reconciled to the corresponding GAAP measures in the accompanying financial tables.

• GAAP operating income in the second quarter of 2010 was $2.37 billion, or 35% of revenues. This compares to GAAP operating income of $1.87 billion, or 34% of revenues, in the second quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP operating income in the second quarter of 2010 was $2.67 billion, or 39% of revenues. This compares to non-GAAP operating income of $2.17 billion, or 39% of revenues, in the second quarter of 2009.
• GAAP net income in the second quarter of 2010 was $1.84 billion, compared to $1.48 billion in the second quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP net income in the second quarter of 2010 was $2.08 billion, compared to $1.71 billion in the second quarter of 2009.
• GAAP EPS in the second quarter of 2010 was $5.71 on 322 million diluted shares outstanding, compared to $4.66 in the second quarter of 2009 on 319 million diluted shares outstanding. Non-GAAP EPS in the second quarter of 2010 was $6.45, compared to $5.36 in the second quarter of 2009.
• Non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP operating margin exclude the expenses related to stock-based compensation (SBC). Non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS exclude the expenses related to SBC and the related tax benefits. In the second quarter of 2010, the charge related to SBC was $309 million, compared to $293 million in the second quarter of 2009. The tax benefit related to SBC was $70 million in the second quarter of 2010 and $70 million in the second quarter of 2009. Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to GAAP operating income, operating margin, net income, and EPS are included at the end of this release.

Source: http://investor.google.com/earnings/2010/Q2_google_earnings.html

First, Why did you build your website?
I think because You want to tell people, aka visitors, something.
About your product, about your service, or even give them information they might benefit from.
But in all cases, you want to reach a certain audience!

And because 80% of the people on the Internet use a Search engine to find the Information they are “searching” for. You need to be there. Most of them won’t even look beyond the first 10 results, sometimes two page two or even three……but not much further.

Info taken from

http://www.pathos-seo.com/planning-your-website/why-do-you-need-seo.html

The point of SEO since “day one” is to increase sales by obtaining qualified business leads from Internet search engines. Achieving this goal is possible with almost any business of any size. And, while SEO is a complex, evolving issue and requires tons and tons of work, every business Owner, President, CEO or CMO must recognize that without an organized SEO campaign in place, you will fade off the map, lose sales to competitors and bleed the value of your brand over time. You will spend tons of money on traditional media buys and find it ever so difficult to track and tie sales to those sources. To ignore SEO in its traditional and new evolving forms is to deny your company and its employees the opportunity to succeed online in the long-term.

Original article located at:

http://www.blueglass.com/blog/why-search-engine-optimization-is-crucial-for-your-small-business/