August 18,
2004
In
This Issue:
1. Blogs Going Primetime
2. In the News - Jux2, MSN Preview Ends, Search Survey
3. More News Headlines
4. This Week's Q&A - When to Add Outbound Links
5. Wrapping It Up
_________________
Blogs Going Primetime
Web logs, or "blogs" as they're more commonly known,
are getting a lot of coverage in mainstream business media, with
almost all of the coverage devoted to the increasing use of corporate
blogs as a tool for increasing business, networking, and increasing
customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Business Week is one of the latest magazines to feature blogs
as business tools: "The business world's posting pioneers say
blogging helps them network, boost sales, and even lobby -- at
a fraction of the cost of traditional media. 'There's no fundamental
difference between giving a keynote speech in Shanghai in front
of 30,000 people and doing a blog read by several million people,'
[Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan] Schwartz says."
InternetNews.com recently called blogs "the marketing killer",
saying "Corporations are no longer relying solely on the official
corporate statement to get the message out."
John Battelle wrote about business blogging back in January of
this year in Business 2.0 magazine: "Blogs will soon become
a staple in the information diet of every serious businessperson,
not because it's cool to read them, but because those who don't
read them will fail. In short, blogs offer an accelerated and efficient
approach to acquiring and understanding the kind of information
all of us need to make business decisions." Here are links
to the full articles:
Business Week: Blogging for Business
Blogs: The Marketing Killer
Business 2.0: Why Blogs Mean Business
A blog, in essence, is like an online journal or diary. A good
company blog is more than a place to post the latest product
or service announcements; it's a place for commentary,
opinion, and
almost anything else. It's where a company can shape its
own identity. It's where you give your company a "face", a personality.
It gives you more control over the flow of information about your
company, and how your customers interact with that information.
Here at OWT, we're in the process of developing some business
blogging-type tools for our clients. The first version
of our tool was actually
used on the official Water Follies web site during the
Columbia Cup last month. But in reality, our "standard" (as
if there is such a thing!) news database can serve as a
sort of online
blog for your business. Consider the Tri-City
Americans home page, which has a series of brief news headlines
and blurbs. Those are
mostly hard news items, but they could all very easily
be blog-type entries. As the links above suggest, if you
don't have a corporate
blog now, you probably will at some point in the not too
distant future.
_________________
In The News
Jux2 Comparison Search Engine
Back in our 5th
newsletter I wrote about a web site offering
a visual comparison so you can see how Google and Yahoo search
results differ. It's also a quick way to see how your own site
ranks in the two search engines. But the tool we mentioned then
is a bit primitive compared to a new beta search engine comparison
site called Jux2.
With Jux2, you can supply a search term and see how the SERPs
compare between Google, Yahoo, and Ask.com (you can compare two
search
engines at a time). For example, you could do a search for "red
widgets" and see how the results compare between Google and
Yahoo. But there's more -- through the Advanced Search page, you
can also specify additional word matching options, search for certain
file types (Word, PDF), or limit your search to certain domain
extensions (.com, .edu, etc.)
When you submit your comparison search, Jux2 shows you how many
results match and also shows you the actual SERPs -- which
means Jux2 is essentially a meta search engine compiling results
from
Google, Yahoo, and Ask.com. It looks like a good tool for those
of you who like to check your own search rankings, and perhaps
a good tool for general web searching, as well.
http://www.jux2.com/
MSN Shuts Search Preview
MSN has closed its Search Technology Preview -- you'll recall
that was the site where you could go to get a sneak peek at the
new search engine Microsoft is building. The beta preview site
was available for about six weeks, and judging from the message
now on the preview page, there may be another preview coming soon:
"Thank you very much to all of those that tried our service
and sent us feedback. We will make improvements based on the suggestions
we received. Once we are ready, we will release another preview
of our new algorithmic search engine. Thanks to the Search Engine
Watch Forums for the link."
http://techpreview.search.msn.com/
Major Search Survey Underway
Sid Yadav, a guy I kinda know from various web development forums,
has launched a survey that asks for your opinions about the
current state and future of search engines. It's only 20 questions,
all
multiple-choice, and should take you about five minutes. No
matter how knowledgeable you are about search engines, your opinion
is wanted.
http://www.nextsearchsurvey.com/
_________________
More News Headlines
Here are a few news headlines worth your time to read.
These are just some of the headlines we've posted
to OWTweb.com in recent
days.
Local search critical to SMEs
August 17, 2004 - ClickZ.com
More than half of the recently surveyed "Hometowner" businesses
believe the Internet will enable them to be more successful in
their local market, compared to 35 percent in 2002.
When search engines become answer engines
August 16, 2004 - UseIt.com
The website is becoming a less prominent locus of experience
as people use search engines to bring up answers to their
current questions. How can sites cope with masses of freeloaders?
Study probes roles Internet is playing in U.S. users lives
August 12, 2004 - San Jose Mercury News
More headlines: http://www.owtweb.com/news/
_________________
This Week's Q&A
Hi Matt,
I know it's important to have incoming links from other sites
to mine. But is it also true that you can help your search engine
rankings by linking out to other sites like ours? Does this mean
we have to link to our competitors if we want to move up the
search engines?
Dave
Hi Dave --
I haven't done any specific study on this myself, but I've seen
plenty of cases mentioned online to say that, yes, Google in
particular likes to see you link out to other sites, too. The
logic behind
this is that part of Google's ranking system includes designating
sites as "hubs" and "authorities". A hub site
is one that links to many authorities. And I've seen examples of
some hub sites ranking very well in Google on certain search terms.
In the end, though, don't add outbound links with the expectation
that you'll suddenly shoot to the first page of search results.
You should add outbound links when it's something that will
be helpful to your site visitors. Linking is the backbone
of the
Internet; Google likes you to participate in that when appropriate.
(Have a question? Email questions@owtweb.com)
_________________
Wrapping it Up
Not that anyone would ever take web design advice from the company
that gave birth to Front Page, but this is ... well ... interesting,
to say the least. On a Help page about web design, Microsoft suggests
you steal the work of other designers. And I quote:
"A good way to settle on a design layout is to find and
copy another page design, one that meets your needs. There are
many design ideas
on the Internet."
http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HA010846721033&CTT=98
(Look about halfway down the page, under the sub-heading that
reads "Add
or draw layout cells".)
Lastly: I'll be out of the office all next week so there will
be no newsletter on August 25th. The next issue will be September
1st!
Thanks for reading,
Matt McGee
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