Amazing 6-minute talk via Jonathon Klein about the significance of photography on the world. Of course, this applies to you how? Think about the images that you select for your marketing – It DOES make a difference.

Enjoy!

The bottom line is that we see Google as generally a higher referrer to enterprise sites, and while Yahoo and Bing are significantly lower in terms of overall share, the gap between the two is narrowing at a quick pace.

The chart below presents enterprise search share performance in views of both year-over-year, as well as month-over-month.

Google hits 80% market share for enterprise level businesses

Google increased month-over-month to command an 80.17 % natural search traffic share to enterprise-level Web sites, while Bing share increased slightly from January to February by 0.09%, to 7.16% overall. Yahoo decreased to a 9.34% share, losing 2.9% search market share year-over-year.

AOL declined in share year-over-year, from 1.95 % in February 2009, down to 1.49 % market share in February 2010. AOL share remained stable month-over-month. Ask.com’s search market share increased slightly in month-over-month share by 0.01%, going from 0.37% up to 0.39 %.

In the month-over-month view, again only Bing and Google made any significant gain in market share. AOL and Ask.com somewhat surprisingly leveled off month-over-month.

Bing making an impact, and preparing to overtake Yahoo

Overall, Bing’s gain in share has had the greatest impact on both Yahoo and AOL. While Yahoo’s loss of almost 3% of the search market is significant, AOL search users are migrating elsewhere, with AOL losing almost 25% of the entire search business. That 0.45 % loss in search market share is a blink and blip for Google, but a much bigger chunk for AOL.

I’ve also been monitoring trend data in the search share race, particularly what I believe to be the inevitable catch-up in market share for Bing (against Yahoo). Based on current trends, we see them overtaking Yahoo later this year, possibly even before there is any kind of direct syndication of Bing results into Yahoo properties.

Read the full article here >

CAVE CREEK, Arizona, Feb. 16, 2010. The Big Niche Marketing strategy, focuses on assisting businesses without in-house marketing teams, compete on the world wide web, announced today their new services: article marketing, video marketing, and an array of search engine optimization techniques that get businesses found online. The services are centered around small businesses, entrepreneurs, and work at home professionals in dominating their niche markets online, utilizing relevant content, strategically positioned on the Internet to drive new prospects back to their business.

“Online begins with search. We help our clients determine the best keyword phrase that people are using today to find their services. Then, we position our client as the experts around that keyword phrase with massive amounts of videos, blog posts and articles,” said Stephanie Robey, cofounder of the company, and an online marketing veteran of over 13. “Essentially, our client is providing the relevant answers to very specific questions being asked online. Convinced, those prospects come back to their website or Blog, typically ready to do business.”

“Unless you’re a huge brand, people are not looking for your business name online. They’re looking for your services,” said Allison Carman, cofounder and developer of Big Niche Marketing’s online blueprint. “Google loves relevant content. As a small business owner, I tried doing this on my own and it was overwhelming. Small businesses don’t have the time to create the massive amounts of content required to compete online today. So, we do it for them.”

Prior to Big Niche Marketing, both Robey and Carman had been successful online marketing leaders in the Network Marketing industry. They created their SEO blueprint while collaborating on their own small businesses. As a former corporate industrial engineer, Carman built the project management blueprint for the extensive “web” of information required and Robey’s entrepreneurial and online marketing expertise provides guidance for the content strategy.

About Big Niche Marketing, LLC.

Big Niche Marketing, LLC is focused on helping small businesses discover their most valuable market niches and then dominate those markets online.  The company provides a very focused, niche service within the SEO, Search Engine Optimization industry, as experts in article writing, blogging, and videos specifically created to drive traffic back to an online business, blog or website. Monthly monitoring services are also available. Big Niche Marketing has offices both in Phoenix and Los Angeles and can be found at www.BigNicheMarketing.com.

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A national survey, conducted by Cision and Don Bates of The George Washington University, found that an overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories. Among the journalists surveyed, 89% said they turn to blogs for story research, 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter. The survey also found that 61% use Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia.

Most journalists said that social media were important or somewhat important for reporting and producing the stories they wrote.

Data In Response To Social Media Resources

The groups placing the highest levels of importance on social media for reporting and producing stories were journalists who spend most of their professional time writing for Websites . Those at Newspapers and Magazines reported this less often. The differences between Magazine journalists and Website journalists is statistically significant.

• Journalists who spend most of their professional time writing for Websites (69%) reported this the most often, and significantly more so than those at Magazines (48%)
• 89% of journalists reported using Blogs for their online research. Only Corporate websites (96%) is used by more journalists when doing online research for a story
• Approximately two-thirds reported using Social Networking sites and just over half make use of Twitter for online research. Newspaper journalists (72%) and those writing for Websites (75%) use Social Networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook for online research significantly more often than those at Magazines (58%)

While the results demonstrate the fast growth of social media as a well-used source of information for mainstream journalists, the survey also made it clear that reporters and editors are acutely aware of the need to verify information they get from social media.

• 84% said social media sources were “slightly less” or “much less” reliable than traditional media
• 49% say social media suffers from “lack of fact checking, verification and reporting standards

Heidi Sullivan, Vice President of Research for Cision, says “Mainstream media have hit a tipping point in their reliance on social media for their research and reporting…however… it is not replacing editors’ and reporters’ reliance on primary sources, fact-checking and other traditional best practices in journalism.”

According to the survey, most journalists turn to public relations professionals for assistance in their primary research:

• 44% of editors and reporters surveyed said they depend on PR professionals for “interviews and access to sources and experts”
• 23% for “answers to questions and targeted information”
• 17% for “perspective, information in context, and background information”

Don Bates, founding director of the GWU Strategic Public Relations program, cautions that, though “Social media provides a wealth of new information for journalists… getting the story right is as important as ever… PR professionals… have a responsibility… to ensure the information they provide journalists is accurate and timely… ”

For a copy of the complete survey results, please go here > http://us.cision.com/campaigns/2010_journalist_survey_pr/request.asp

In today’s economy, defining your niche business is not only important, it’s critical.

Let’s say you’re a plumber and you have a website. Well, plumber is a fairly broad definition of an industry. By narrowing it down to a more specific niche market you can clearly define your best customer, ready to buy.

Niche Keywords Bring Paying Customers

How?  I’m glad you asked.

Think about your best customers.  Now describe them: the age, the sex, where he or she lives, whether or not they have kids, how much money they make – shoot, give ‘em a name (Bob). In doing so you’ll save time, energy, and money, and know exactly how to get them to your website.

Your business will be more profitable and knock out the competition, whose – chances are – niche market isn’t defined.

So, what exactly is a niche business?

A business that focuses on very specific products or services.

Back to the plumber. By appealing to smaller segments of larger markets, especially online, you can target the very specific long-tail (multi-word) keywords that people are typing into Google.

If you’re market is people in Small Town, State, USA and you specialize in residential plumbing, then your website should be optimized to be found by all of the people typing into Google: “residential plumbing small town, state”.

“Plumber”, alone, is going to be a little bit more difficult to optimize. Besides, it could be someone in “Big City” looking for a plumber – - of little value to you. But, the guy typing in “residential plumbing in your town, state” – probably knows EXACTLY what he’s looking for and he’s ready to buy.

By breaking the market into keywords, you can clearly target your customers. Your website should be optimized for search engines with these niche keywords so that you get found online. You’ll also find it’s easier to develop ideas for new products or services that inherently appeal to the specific niche. Bonus!

HERE ARE A FEW TIPS: .

• Refine your product and service until you’ve become a specialist! Trying to be a ‘vendor to the masses’ can lead to high costs without profit while your business slips through your grasp.
• Use the Adwords tool from Google. It’s free and a simple way to see which keywords are being typed directly into Google, This will also help you define your target market by knowing what customers are looking for today.

People purchase products or services for three reasons:

• To satisfy a basic need
• To solve a problem
• To make themselves feel good.

Your products or services should be the solution to the keywords being typed into Google. In some cases this may fall under many long-tail keywords, such as a restaurant. Hungry people come in to eat, and so they don’t have to prepare a meal and clean up after it. Or, maybe it’s for entertainment: they’re traveling or hosting clients. It all comes down to properly zeroing in on your target market segment.

Finally, research, research, and research!

Is your product or service international, national, or local? Does it matter? You can research a specific area or community’s demographic. Information like this is widely available via the Internet, there’s really no excuse to not know. Narrow down your target to your niche market’s demographics. Where do they live? Local market targeting is one of the best ways to get a business found online today. Yes, it really is that easy!

For details on how to find your Niche Business via keywords, add our Blog to your RSS feed, or get updates when you sign up for our consultation. The most challenging, yet rewarding aspect of niche marketing online is determining the “keyword” niche. Get a FREE Keyword Consultation here http://www.BigNicheMarketing.com/contact-us.

Today, you simply “google” it. Which means…

It all starts with your keywords! Not only is there gold in identifying those “long-tail” keywords, but the more you identify – the more apt people are to find you, your products, your services, and your whatever!

Be specific and you’ll find your buyers, money in hand. Be broad and you’ll end up with a lot of window shoppers just doing their homework. Which brings me to…

3 Critical Steps To Finding A Niche Market (And Striking Gold!)

Step #1. Identify the long-tail keywords that someone ready to buy from you TODAY is most likely to use in a search.

Hint: IT IS NOT YOUR NAME.
Most people will proudly share that they rank #1 on Google for their name. And, they should! But, the fact is – unless you are a well-known brand (think Amazon) no one is searching for you (vs. Joe Shmoe’s Books).

Step #2. Establish yourself as an expert with both Google and your prospects by creating massive content optimized for the web, seeded with your strategic keywords:

• Articles
• Press releases
• Videos
• Blogs

The objective here is to pre-sell and pre-qualify your prospects so when they’re ready to do buy, they’re already convinced you’re the best choice. Take massive action here! Blogging 3 to 5 times a day on your expertise is a great start. But, that’s exactly what it is – a “start.”

Step #3. Now, here’s the most important step of all so pay close attention. This is where 97% of your competitors will get it wrong, where you can dominate with your keywords and within your niche market and where Google considers YOU to be the expert.

Properly link and promote all of your massive amounts of content across the Internet, utilizing those same long-tail keywords, seeded, and as anchor text, pushing and pulling highly targeted prospects to your site. Give them the option to research a little, or BUY RIGHT NOW! Otherwise, give them something in exchange for their email and start to build a relationship.

Plenty of Golden Keyword Niche Markets But Limited Streams

Let’s face it. There are only 10 “organic” results on the first page of Google. Corporate big brother, who can simply throw marketing dollars out to the universe, has already swallowed up the broad categories. Chances are, you can’t!

And, honestly – it’s not necessary. Go for the gold, instead. Lock up those long-tail keywords now! Before your competitor (and corporate Big Brother) does.

The marketplace continues to expand, creating all kinds of specific, very niche markets. So does the demand for specialized products and services. This is where you’ll find the untapped goldmines. They are the key to creating and sustaining a successful and profitable business and securing your spot online.

For details on how to utilize niche marketing, read our Blog. The most challenging, yet rewarding aspect is determining the “keyword” niche. Get a FREE Keyword Consultation here http://www.BigNicheMarketing.com/contact-us.