My opinion on the matter is that in general I would give the slight edge to SEO. If you can get people to your site, unless usability is really atrocious, you will succeed. Now you may have both good SEO and good usability and still fail, your offering may just not be good enough to put it nicely. SEO will help get first timers to your site, usability will keep them coming back.

Here is an excerpt from Dave’s post:

It is the chicken before the egg of the online industry.

Which comes first usability or SEO?

Designers and developers often take one stance on the issue, and SEOs another. I am not sure there is a right or wrong answer. Despite how many in our industry present information the only way we can quantify any degree of success in what we do is by measuring how profitable a web property is (I know not all websites operate for revenue, but who cares about them?).

Profitable sites have been built without sound search engine optimization.

Profitable sites have been built with poor usability.

Neither of these points can be argued.

Here is the story courtesy of CTV.ca:

Web regulator opens door to infinite domain names

Updated Thu. Jun. 26 2008 1:11 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

“Dot-com”, the ubiquitous term that has come to serve as a description for all things Internet-related, could be in the sunset of its heyday following a key decision Thursday on domain names.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann — the body that regulates the Internet, voted unanimously to ease up restrictions on domain names such as .com or .net.

The decision, made on the final day of week-long meetings in Paris, could trigger a frenzy of bidding as companies rush to claim domains like .investment or .travel.

In fact almost anything could become a web address under the new rules — from personal names to trademarked brands for major corporations.

Individuals could get domains named after themselves so long as they could prove they have a business plan and “technical capacity” according to the plans for the system.

However, companies with intellectual property linked to a specific name will have first dibs on their own domain, like .ctv, for example.

The new rules would mark a historic change from the current system where only .com, .net, .edu or .org are permitted, in addition to country domains like .ca or .au.

The new system could be in place as early as next year, but many details have to be worked out first.

As it is proposed now, applicants would go through a review phase, where others would have the opportunity to object to a requested domain over racism, trademark issues or similarity to an already existing domain.

If the application isn’t challenged, it would be ushered through.

But even some members who voted for the plan had concerns about its implementation.

“If this is broadly implemented, this recommendation would allow for any government to effectively veto a string that makes it uncomfortable,” Susan Crawford, a Yale law professor on the board told The Associated Press. She called for more clarity prior to implementation of the changes.

Icann also voted to open for public comment a proposal to allow domain names that are written with non-Latin characters, such as Arabic.

If you have been looking at testing out the Facebook ad Network, now is the time to do so. Or if you already use it  (as I do) you have an extra $100 cash to play with.

Andrew Goodman - Web 2.0 Orion Panel at SES Toronto 2008

David Snyder - Is Titter a useful tool or is it a time waster?

Six Pixels of Separation and Universal Search by Mitch Joel

Launch of SearchMonkey by Yahoo! Canada

Yellow Pages’ Darby Sieban at SES Toronto 2008

Search and Social - Escalator Pitch SES Toronto 2008

I have 10 invites to give away to this exciting new site/blog builder.

If you would like to receive one, all I ask is for a mention on your blog, additionally a link, and lastly some comment activity (good comments) on some of my posts.

The first 10 who email me to express their interest and then follow through with my requirements get an invite.

email michaelmuise@gmail.com

The research showed that 72% of users choose to click on the organic or natural search results while 28 % of users would in fact click on paid search results if they were relevant.

Now, while the numbers seem to drastically favour organic results I do not believe your marketing budget should necessarily reflect that as well. An additional stat that would be of use in conjunction with this is what the intent is of these users who click? Are they buyers or simply researchers? I believe that a greater percentage of the 28% who click on PPC ads have the intent to buy.

Think about it, when you come across a product or service of interest, what is the first thing most of you do? Go online and research the product. Even if you are talking to a friend or close business associate and they recommend their latest cell phone purchase, chances are you are going online to research it.

I don’t thing it it would be a stretch to say that nearly 100% of users will perform some sort of search to research the product. Taking that into consideration, coupled with the fact that 40% will buy, don’t you want to be sure that you are within the top few results they will come across in their search results?

Well as you know most search engines over the years have had tabbed or categorized their search results. I.E with Google you have web search, image search, news, video, etc. All of which the user would click on the corresponding link to access the search results for that grouping. What universal/blended search is all about is eliminating the need for users to click on those additional grouping links. Instead when the user issues a search the results page displays a hand-full of relevant multimedia such as photos and videos, relevant news headlines, etc. in addition to the customary natural search results you would expect.

From a user perspective their a 3 primary views on this new way of doing things:

1. They think its great, more relevant content including multimedia on one page!

2. They hate it, they find it cluttered and confusing to navigate.

3. They are indifferent.

From a marketing perspective it throws a new dynamic to your marketing strategy. Whoa, what?!? Many preach after all SEO and SEM are supposed to be the keys to being successful on search. The problem is these other results which are not necessarily “optimized” are potentially showing up higher in results than you. You may be the top listed result in the organic results but still be below several other results because of the added results displayed. The level of competition though in getting into those spaces is not as high. Not yet anyway.

So how do you take advantage of universal/blended search? Well that really depends on your industry, your vertical. However a couple of things you should look at are:

1. Releasing keyword optimized press releases into the news stream. You can milk a good press release for about 30 days. A good press release will get a reaction which in turn will have others writing about you and hence creating more potential news stories about your brand.

2. Create video and submit to the major players such as YouTube. What you video content is will differ depending on your vertical. It could be product demonstration, how-to’s, etc.

I am really just touching ever so lightly on the topic here, it will be a topic for further discussion later.

I strongly recommend you check this guy out, and let him know the Muise sent you his way!

Best Cdn. brand rankings

SOURCE: INTERBRAND