I was out of town most of last week. So you didn’t get any news overview from me then. But I’m making up for it this week with both this week and last weeks’ news.

Two stories, in particular, have interesting implications from my point of view.

First, Matt Cutts’ blog post “Calling for link spam reports” is a real forward call on Google’s behalf to root out link spam. Google wants you to turn in anyone you think may be engaged in link spam. Maybe it’s just because I was watching MSNBC’s “Lockup” last night, where the prisoner code is to never snitch, but I am initially turned off by the whole snitching mentality. While I think that a show like “America’s Most Wanted” is probably a net positive for our country, I just have a hard time thinking that everybody is out there waiting to turn in anybody. I have a little resentment every time I think of the Unibomber’s brother turning him in.

But that’s just me. Apparently I’m way in the minority here. And honestly, I’m sure reporting link spam will make things better. So, go forth and report link spam.

The other report that struck me as particularly interesting is “B2B Marketers: 490% Increase in Social Media Spend by 2014?“. Actually, that headline isn’t the most interesting part of the report. The vast majority of money spent by b2b marketers online is in paid search. That intrigues me. It’s not display, email or SEO. They are buying pay-per-click ads in droves. That is interesting if you are a b2b marketer so you can see how you line up to your peers. And it’s interesting if you are an agency that caters to b2b companies. You probably should be pushing ppc ads real heavy.

So, those are the thoughts that jumped out at me. Here’s the rest of the headlines:

Calling for link spam reports

Google has been working on some new algorithms and tools to tackle linkspam and we’d like to ask for linkspam reports from you. If you’d like to tell us about web sites that appear to be using spammy links (e.g. paid links that pass PageRank, blog spammers, guestbook spammers, etc.), here’s how to send us more info.

126 Million Blogs on the Internet – Search Engine Guide Blog

• 1.73 Billion Internet users worldwide
• 90 Trillion Emails Sent in 2009
• 81% of Emails were Spam
• 126 Million Blogs on the Internet
• 27.3 Million Tweets Per Day
• Faceboook serves 6 million pages per minute
• 4 Billion photos hosted by Flickr
• 182 Videos watched on average per month (per user)

Study: 43% of Email Marketers Want a Slice of the Social Media Pie

43% of email marketing firms are already offering social media marketing as part of their service line-up:

Facebook Increases Local Ad Targeting Capabilities and SMB’s Rejoice

In its latest move to expand its performance advertising program, Facebook is offering what it tells us is “thousands” of new cities in its self-serve advertising tool, meaning advertisers can more narrowly target users across the United States and around the world.

B2B Marketers: 490% Increase in Social Media Spend by 2014?

Forrester is predicting a significant uptick in internet marketing by those in the B2B space. In fact, it’s predicting spend will almost double over the next five years–going from $2.3 billion in 2009 to $4.8 billion in 2014!

Trackur Shakes Up the Social Media Monitoring Space with a Free Plan

Trackur Free comes with all of the great functionality we offer in our Personal and Corporate plans, but without the price tag! You get unlimited search results, anyone can share your login, you get reports, CSV export, RSS and email alerts. Just about everything we offer. The only restriction is that you can only save one search on Trackur Free. For individuals or small businesses, that may be all you ever need!

Display Makes Searchers Buy Faster

They found that early one in five people who convert after using search had seen at least one display ad before searching. Eyeblaster concluded that display advertising increases the reach of campaigns, pushing more consumers to search. Those consumers then move through the purchasing funnel faster.

Local Advertising to Make Gradual Comeback With Digital Leading the Way

BIA/Kelsey said there was a slowdown in the growth rate for digital, including search, display and classifieds, but it predicted that digital – now about 14 percent of total local ad spend – will encompass 25 percent by 2014.

Yahoo! Launches Paid Search Desktop Tool – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

New tool allows you to manage multiple search marketing campaigns offline.

AdWords Extends Mobile Click-to-Call to National Advertisers – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

For example, let’s say you’re searching for a car rental and an ad from a national chain pops up in your mobile search. Perhaps they want to funnel all calls through a single number. Now, they can do so with Click-to-Call mobile ads in AdWords.

DiggAds Off to a Good Start – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Buch said that revenues are great and that advertisers are pleased with the results. For example, Paramount saw great results promoting the low-budget scare flick Paranormal Activity using DiggAds.

Digg users for the most part seemed pleased. They’ve requested the ability to comment on ads and Digg has listened – that feature is in the works.

Google Adds Sidewiki Control to Google Webmaster Tools

The feature basically let’s you control the message you show to users who use that Google Sidewiki within the Google Toolbar. In the past, webmasters had to use the Google Toolbar to add a site owner message.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

SEM News – Dear Leader Wants Your Link Spam – March 8, 2010

This is potentially a little premature, because anything can happen.

Phone Update: 330-379-9000 is now working.

You currently can’t get through on 330-379-9000.
Call this number instead: (330) 664-9866 – Until further notice.

2010-02-27 9:18:28 am: It’s Saturday morning and I’m happy to say that the network and phone system are up and running. That means that all the normal voicemail features work and so do all the phones.

The movers got everything moved in about 3:30 yesterday. It turns out we have a lot of stuff!

There’s a lot of boxes and stacked stuff. But the main work area is up and running and actually is looking quite nice. I’ll put some pictures up once I’m over there today.

Our electric and phone are up and running. Those were the items that I really wanted to have running by this point. We accomplished that.

But, there is still no water or gas heat. Gas is turned on, on Monday and water is turned on, on Wednesday. Those were the absolute earliest these people could come out.

I’m going to be teaching a 2 day social media class in Houston and won’t be back in the office until Thursday. So, I shouldn’t notice. Greg and Rocky will be organizing all of those utilities. It comes with a certain amount of question. Both the water and gas have been turned off for a couple years, from what I understand. Hopefully that won’t cause any problem. But we’ll see.

I’ll continue to keep you updated. And I’ll get some more pictures up soon.

2010-02-26 8:48:03: Whelp, I’m now sitting in the shell of our old building just waiting for the movers to come. I’m running this one computer off my cell phone signal. The great news is… the phone and internet are working perfectly at the new place. The challenge is that our phone server doesn’t want to connect to the network. The server itself does what it’s supposed to. But it won’t connect to the network and, consequently, the phones. So, I’m currently forwarding our main number (330)-379-9000 to my cell phone.

I might have to get a technician in to come look at that server. It’s a Gentoo Linux distribution which has become pretty obscure in the Linux world. I’m not totally sure I will easily be able to find someone. We’ll see.

But other than the phone server glitch (oh! and the near blizzard conditions today in Northeast Ohio) the move is going extremely well. Heat, however, doesn’t get turned on until Monday. So we are running a kerosene heater and several electric heaters. I got my area up to 40 degrees last night. Needless to say, people that aren’t involved in the move are working from home until further notice.

2010-02-25: The phone company was supposed to come this afternoon (Thursday, Feb. 25th). But they came this morning. It’s great they got a jump on it. But that did shut our phones down a bit early. I’ll post more soon!

It’s official! SageRock will be moving to this very building. And it will be happening fast!

This is how it will all work.

Thursday, February 25, 2010 will be the day the phones transfer. This could be a little sketchy as to reaching us on the phone. I’m sincerely hoping I can set up a forwarding or voicemail feature on the phone. But it’s likely that this day would be best to reach us via email (mine is sage@sagerock.com) or you can call me on Google Voice at: (330) 664-9866.

Then, Friday, February 26, 2010 is moving day. Have you heard of Two Men and a Truck? Well, we’re getting Six Men and Three Trucks. I have to admit that there probably isn’t going to be too much done in actual production work this day. But if you need us just let us know. Hopefully the phone will be working.

Then, Monday, March 1, 2010 it should be like nothing happened. Hopefully.

There’s a lot of variables like phone, water, electric, heat. But I’m sure it will all get sorted out.

All of our files are on a virtual server. So there really shouldn’t be any downtime as far as access to work. If, for some reason, there is a problem with anything we will be able to work from home with little notice. We all do it quite seamlessly already.

We’ll keep you updated.

This is a big day in the evolution of our little company. The first check we ever got (I actually made a print out of it and have it on my wall) was sent to us in February 2000. Exactly 10 years later, February 2010, we are now buying a building. If you’re out there, thank you Brad Grubb! You were the first person to believe in us.

Here is the rest of the original post:

But, if all goes according to plan, by March, SageRock should be all settled in its very own building.

That’s right. SageRock is buying a building.

This building, on 15 Broad St. in Akron Ohio, was actually the first hospital in Akron.

Most recently it was a hair salon.

But now I’m thinking it might just be the Web Marketing Center of the Universe.

There is 6000 sq. feet that is renovated and ready to go. Then there is another 2000 sq. feet that can be renovated for use.

Plus, there is a tall basement the entire footprint of the building. So, with some creative use, there could be 16,000 sq. feet of SageRock fun.

I’ve already got a lot of thoughts for what we can do with the space.

But first things first, we have to go through all the steps of buying it.

There is still an inspection (but all wiring, plumbing, roof and furnaces are new), and we have to officially close. But we were approved for the loan.

So, I’d say us moving in is probably close to 90%, if I had to put a percentage to it all.

We’re all really excited because it’s a creative space, but maybe a little more “businessey” than our current space. It’s got a lot of character.

I’ll keep you updated as things progress. But with any kind of luck, SageRock is the proud owner of it’s own shiny, new (to us) building.

Here are some pictures of the inside:

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

SageRock’s New Home

You can learn more about all these stories here:

• Microsoft Yahoo Search Deal Passes Regulatory Hurdle
• Facebook Fan Pages May Actually Be Effective Marketing (For Facebook Users)
• Fortune 500 Spending $1.2 Billion on Paid Search, Because They Can’t Rank Naturally!
• Google Gives SMB Market Something to Look Forward To

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Web Marketing Week In 60 – February 22

Photo from: Facebook – Blogrunner

Facebook continues to push their aggressive, innovative lead.

I’ve referenced what turned out to be 3 different stories that directly relate to Facebook. The one I want you to pay particular attention to is “Facebook Fan Pages May Actually Be Effective Marketing“.

This references a study done by one retailer that tracks the influence Facebook has had on their business. It’s an impressive account of their success.

I do a lot of social media training these days. One of the top questions people always ask is, “How is all this going to make me money?”

This study starts to answer that kind of question head-on.

I predict Facebook will continue to push hard in the statistical analysis aspect of their business. The more they can prove the case that “Facebook makes you money,” the quicker they will get more advertisers.

Keep a close eye on Facebook for your business. I predict this will very likely become the second most important place to promote your business (after Google).

And here’s the rest of the news…

Microsoft Yahoo Search Deal Passes Regulatory Hurdle

The integration of the two engines will be started immediately and it will take until 2011 before the advertising part of the deal is integrated.

Facebook Fan Pages May Actually Be Effective Marketing (For Facebook Users)

FB fans:

* Made 36 percent more visits to DG’s stores each month.
* Spent 45 percent more of their eating-out dollars at DG.
* Spent 33 percent more at DG’s stores.
* Had 14 percent higher emotional attachment to the DG brand.
* Had 41 percent greater psychological loyalty toward DG.

Facebook Offers More Control Over Information Shared Through Apps

There are now granular privacy options that enable you to personalize the audience for each piece of content you share through applications. Simply select the group of people you want to share with from the drop-down menu near the lock icon on the Publisher on your home page or profile, or the prompts that appear when you share from applications or Facebook Connect websites.

Facebook Corners 44% of Social Sharing

Twitter had 29%, Yahoo 18% and MySpace 9%.

Fortune 500 Spending $1.2 Billion on Paid Search, Because They Can’t Rank Naturally!

According to a new study from Conductor, only 25% of the Fortune 500’s combined targeted paid keywords–97,555 keywords, totaling a daily spend of $3.4M–ranked in the top 50 natural search results.

only 2% of Fortune 500 domains analyzed had any significant number of search terms in the top results

Google Gives SMB Market Something to Look Forward To

Now Mr. Cowie is trying something new: for a flat fee of $25 a month, he is making his listings on Google stand out. Whenever his shop comes up in a search page or on a Google map, it is adorned with a bright yellow tag. The tag links to the Kingpinz Web site, but these enhanced listings, as the ads are called, can also link to a coupon, store directions, a photograph or a video of a business, or, in the case of a restaurant, a menu or reservations page.

Study Reveals Google, Yahoo & Bing Users Perceive Your Brand Differently

Bing users, for example, tend to be mostly from the tip of the adoption curve (innovators and early adopters) where Yahoo! and Google’s passengers tend to be middle majority [and] each search engine demonstrated different degrees of consumer engagement ranging from visiting to finally purchasing.

How to Make Money on Foursquare

This new social broadcast application can help your business promote deals, get the attention of savvy early adopters of technology, or simply to increase foot traffic.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

SEM News – Facebook Proves Effective Marketing Tool – February 22, 2010

Photo from: Unintended Contextual Advertising? on Flickr

As I look over the news this week, I see a trend discussing a resurgence in display advertisement. Google is looking to make more money and shiny, moving picture ads is probably the way to go.

The difference this time around will hopefully be metrics. If display media has a chance of truly succeeding, metrics will be the determining factor. And if anyone is up for making those metrics possible, it’s Google.

So, if 2010 is the year you dabble in a little display media just be sure to ask yourself: “What is the goal of this whole thing?”

Here’s the rest of the news:

Google Pays $50M for an Anteater

Aardvark was just acquired by Google for a cool $50 million.

People Don’t Trust People Like You Anymore

The executive summary shows traditional media trust is diving, with TV news down 20%, radio news down 17% and print news down 12%.

Google Display Ad Business Poised for $1 B in 2010

About $700 million of that number should come from YouTube while the remaining will come out of the DoubleClick operations that are gaining momentum.

Bing – Webmaster Center FAQ updated – Webmaster Center Blog – Bing Community

The Webmaster Center FAQ document now contains 82 detailed questions and answers, organized into 12 categories, all navigable through a linked table of contents.

The Rise of Universal Paid Search – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Google is putting a big emphasis on display in 2010:

“Our display business will give advertisers the opportunity to reach people with visual stories and narratives that they couldn’t with search-ad text,” Mr. Schmidt said on a call with analysts.

“We’ve been saying for a while that display is a big opportunity. One story you haven’t seen so far is how successful we’ve been in display, but that will come out in 2010.” (AllThingsD)

Americans conducted 15.2 core searches in January 2010 – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

In January 2010, Americans conducted 15.2 billion core searches.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Search Engine Marketing News – February 15, 2010

I wanted to take a minute to let you know about a webinar that I’ll be doing this week: Thursday, February 18 @ 11 a.m.

Here’s the writeup on the webinar:

Building a Social Media Strategy

Like any good strategy, social media strategy comes down to some very basic questions about what you want to do, for whom and how. In this session, participants will identify the business objectives behind using social media and map out a plan.

The best part of it all is: IT’S FREE!

So, if you are are looking for some good social media information be sure to check out this event.

Click here to learn more.

(There are a bunch of other really good webinars coming up as well. You will find those on that page, too.)

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Upcoming Social Media Webinar

First, I want you to take a look at “How did you do on the Webmaster Quiz?” This is a quiz that Google offered to people regarding SEO. The answers, found on that link, give you a really nice comprehensive overview of Google approved SEO behaviors. You most certainly will learn a lot from that.

Then I want you to look at 2 stories together. “70% of Companies Plan to Spend More” and “Social Media Case Study: Piper Aircraft.”

The first article goes on to say, “They want to do it, but 40% of those surveyed simply don’t have the budget to spend more on marketing this year.”

So, cash is still really tight for marketing. But the Piper Aircraft story says that they did the entire campaign on $40,000. That’s not too shabby considering they say they sold at least one airplane for $140,000 using this social media campaign.

Back at the first story, the survey asked: “What is preventing your company from investing more money in digital marketing?”
Money is the first answer.
But the #2 answer is: “Lack of staff to make most of any digital investment.”

This answer is a huge opportunity for everyone. If you are a Web marketer I would highly suggest you start promoting social media education and training. If you are a company that doesn’t have the people to get this done, I would highly recommend you start getting education and training.

Here’s the rest of the news. Enjoy!

Facebook Sends More News Traffic than Google News

After Google (17.32%), Yahoo (7.89%) and msn (4.43%), Facebook was the fourth most popular referrer for news websites.

29% of Companies Have a Social Media Policy

Manpower shows that only 29% of companies have a formal social media policy in place.

70% of Companies Plan to Spend More on Twitter & Facebook Marketing

They want to do it, but 40% of those surveyed simply don’t have the budget to spend more on marketing this year.

Tripping Link Filters | Link Spiel

Hoards of people don’t just give away links to a single site/page unless they’ve been asked/paid to do so, so the engine assumes the links haven’t been acquired editorially and either ignore them or slaps you down.

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: How did you do on the Webmaster Quiz?

we’re pleased to present the Webmaster Quiz answers!

178 million Americans watched 33 billion videos in December – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

This means Americans watched an average of 187 videos per viewer during the month.

Social Media Case Study: Piper Aircraft Launches PiperSport Light Sport Aircraft on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

• Videos about the PiperSport, posted on the PiperSport YouTube channel, have been viewed 22,808 times.
• PiperSport has 4,886 fans on Facebook, a large percentage of whom are active, engaged, and contributing to the community with photos, news, insight, reviews, and enthusiasm.
• Major aviation journalists and bloggers are following PiperSport on Twitter.
• At least one $140,000 airplane has already been sold online through an Internet link, and many people who discovered the PiperSport through social media are in sales conversations with Piper or its dealers.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Search Engine Marketing News – February 8, 2010

For some reason I seem to be teaching a lot.

That’s OK in my book. Of all the parts of my job, teaching is the thing I think I enjoy the most.

It’s just fun.

Tomorrow I’ll be teaching the class: Social Media – Using Social Media to Market Your Business.

I’ll be at:
Corporate College East
4400 Richmond Road
Warrensville Heights, Ohio 44128

Here’s the writeup of the class:

Thursday, February 04, 2010
8:30 am – 10:30 am

You have all your social media pages set up and now you can determine how to use them for the benefit of your business. Learn how to use Social Networking to develop new sales and marketing tactics for your business. This session will give examples of how successful companies are incorporating social media tools into their marketing campaigns.

This topic is, by far, the most popular topic I talk about right now. Everyone wants to learn more.

I discuss this topic from coast to coast. I’ll be keynoting a social media event in Houston coming up. And then I’ll be going back to do a 2 day intensive training.

This is the social media section of my bio:

Sage Lewis has been invited to speak, consult and train on social media at some of the largest conferences and brands in the nation.

His social media training and speaking include places such as:

• The Social Media In-depth trainer at Search Engine Strategies conferences nationwide.
• Cuyahoga Community College as a regular instructor.
• National Speakers Association
• American Chamber of Commerce
• Duck Brand Duct Tape
• Development Dimensions International
• Monsanto
• COSE Small Business Conference
• eMarketing Techniques Conferences

And while I’m cutting and pasting, here are some comments from one of my last social media training sessions:

• Sage rocks!
• The most engaging speaker at COSE!
• 100% A+ Awesome. Enthusiasm.
• Wow! Great! Thanks!
• Needed more time for this speaker!
• Sage is enthusiastic about his work. Full of good info. He put passion into his topic. Time flew.

It’s easy to love what I do when I get to talk about such an awesome topic like social media.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE.

This two hour session is super cheap. $10 for COSE members and $20 for non-members. You can’t beat that.

I know it’s last minute, but I’d love to see you there.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Tomorrow! Sage Teaching 2 Hour Social Media Class

Today’s news is brought to you by the sweet new mug I just got from the great people of Incisive Media. They bring you the sites of:

• ClickZ.com
• SearchEngineWatch.com
• SearchEngineStrategies.com

It’s the Terra eco-friendly, responsible, reusable thermal porcelain cup with silicon lid. I’m psyched because it says I can put it in the microwave.

That was really nice. Thanks guys!

(If you aren’t aware, I work pretty closely with them. I speak at most of their events and I also write as one of their experts on their sites.)

On to the news…

The article the got me the most excited was, “Google Reader No Longer Just for RSS Feeds“. This is super handy. Until now, RSS readers would only tell you about updated pages that had RSS feeds attached to them. Now you can monitor any page. This can include competitor product pages, industry expert pages (so you can be a resource for them), client site changes, changes in sites that could give you insight into possible new customers… just use your imagination. This is a handy little tool.

Here are all the headlines that I felt were important for you over the last week. Enjoy!

50% of Marketers Shifting Funds From Traditional to Online; Social “Top Priority”

Society of Digital Agencies suggests that 50% of marketers will shift budgets from traditional to online media.

Not only that, but the highest priority for this newly allocated budget is social networks:

Google Reader No Longer Just for RSS Feeds

For example, if you wanted to follow Google.org’s latest products, just type “http://www.google.org/products.html” into Reader’s “Add a subscription” field. Click “create a feed”, and Reader will periodically visit the page and publish any significant changes it finds as items in a custom feed created just for that page.

Official Google Blog: Search is getting more social

With Social Search, when we search for [baby sleep patterns], [swaddling] or [best cribs], not only do we get the usual websites with expert opinions, we also find relevant pages from our friends and contacts. For example, if one of my friends has written a blog where he talks about a great baby shop he found in Mountain View, this might appear in my social results. I could probably find other reviews, but my friend’s blog is more relevant because I know and trust the author.

Remove Pages From Google ~Forever Using a 410 Status Code

Last year we started started treating 410 Gone responses as being a stronger signal for indicating when a page no longer exists. So for the situation you describe (where 301 redirects aren’t practical) returning a 410 response is the way to go.

Payvment lets you launch a storefront on Facebook

Their Facebook app is free and dead simple to use. It allows you to sell an unlimited number of items to your Facebook fans, who can now search and purchase your products across any storefront on Facebook.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Search Engine Marketing News – February 1, 2010

I wanted to let all of you Northeast Ohio people know about a class I’ll be teaching tomorrow, Wednesday January 27 at Corporate College East from 6:30PM – 8:30PM.

It’s a 2 hour SEO class where we’ll cover all the fundamental aspects of search engine optimization.

Now granted, we won’t be able to get incredibly in-depth in 2 hours. But we will definitely cover things like:

• Doing key phrase research for free.
• Understanding  how the search engines come up with the top listings.
• The 3 most important aspects of on-the-page search engine optimization.
• Getting started with a link building campaign.

If you are new to SEO, this will be a great class for you.

PLUS! It is only $39. I never offer training at that price. I just can’t. In fact, I’m doing this SEO class for free. I don’t get paid anything for doing it. It’s  a contribution I make to the NEO community.

So, if you want to get some great SEO information for incredibly cheap, go here to sign up:
http://bit.ly/dv0tBA

I hope to see you there.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Sage Teaching A 2 Hour SEO Class