Mediaboss Marketing

This week at the Search Engine Roundtable, I published the monthly Google SEO recap. Google is pushing out the default SSL search globally. Google stepped up webmaster notifications alerting of low quality pages and traffic changes to top URLs. Google is also pushing Google+ with "thank them" on the Google search results. Google shares data between mobile and desktop to help you. Google gave timelines for Google Places updates as they upgrade their systems. Google sent out 700,000 messages to webmasters in the past two months. Google added user access controls to Webmaster Tools. And Google had a special Google logo for Internationals Women's Day yesterday. That was this past week in search at the Search Engine Roundtable.

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Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: March 9, 2012

SEO Positive has announced it is currently in the process of evaluating ideas derived from several corporate talks at last weeks TFM&A exhibition in London with a view to applying hot trends to their own internet marketing services.

(PRWEB UK) 10 March 2012

Staff from the Support and Paid Search teams at the SEO agency attended the event in order to gauge a better understanding of the industrys hottest topics and trends. These team members will be comparing notes and talking extensively with the rest of the management team to find ways to incorporate new knowledge into existing procedures and services.

Many of the seminars, which were open to visitors throughout the summit, were hosted by employees from several internationally-renowned online marketing agencies and brands. Areas covered included email marketing tips and tricks, the rise and implications of social media and SEO techniques for 2012.

Evaldas Balcius, Head of Paid Search at SEO Positive, believes that the event was a valuable experience from both a B2B and B2C perspective.

We like to take the opportunity to catch up with peers and competitors at events such as TFM&A, Evaldas explains. As we are also hosting several talks at the Internet World exhibition in April we also found it interesting to learn what other companies are talking about and how they are communicating their ideas to an audience thats comprised of both digital marketing professionals and potential clients from some of the worlds leading brand names.

SEO Positive was established in 2007 in Chelmsford, Essex with the aim of bringing effective yet affordable online marketing services to companies from all industries and backgrounds. The company offers a huge range of services including search engine optimisation, Pay Per Click account management, social media marketing and online reputation control.

Ben Austin SEO Positive Limited 0800 088 6000 Email Information

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SEO Positive Reviews TFMandA Exhibition

MIDDLETOWN, NJ--(Marketwire -03/09/12)-

WHO: Jeanne Achille, CEO of The Devon Group, a public relations and marketing services firm

WHAT: Will participate in a panel discussion titled "Social PR: Rising Above the Noise," as part of HRmarketer and HR.com's joint virtual event series, "Sales and Social Marketing 101 and Beyond."

WHEN: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. EDT.

WHERE: Registration details are available at: http://www.hr.com/en?t=/contentManager/onStory&StoryID=1329322932050

DETAILS: With social media creating unlimited marketing potential, it's easier than ever for companies to share their stories with HR journalists and analysts. But despite the ability to connect like never before, the audience is becoming increasingly complex. As such, the lines between traditional media outlets and a vocal community of bloggers, HR professionals and thought leaders is blurring, and organizations need to make sure they reach out to the right people in this environment to gain interest in their news. During this complimentary webinar, Jeanne Achille, CEO of The Devon Group, will join Sarah-Beth Anders, senior manager of Communications at Achievers, and David McInnis, founder of PRWeb, in a discussion aimed at teaching participants how to navigate the changing face of media and identify the influencers and social voices who can draw attention to their companies and elevate their brands.

Attendees will also learn how to target journalists and influencers who may be interested in their news; effective methods for pitching news and story ideas; and the best practices for building relationships with media and online influencers.

Marketing, PR and sales professionals interested in learning the newest tactics for building their company's image, brand and sales are encouraged to attend this interactive session that will teach them how to direct their news and stories to the people who can make a difference.

About The Devon GroupFounded in 1994, The Devon Group delivers quantifiable branding, public relations and marketing results to a wide variety of global companies and organizations. The Devon Group is committed to fully engaged partnerships with our clients and has one of the highest client retention rates in the PR industry. The Company's full range of brand definition and articulation, PR and marketing programs build awareness and accelerate sales. The Devon Group has won numerous awards for branding, writing outstanding feature stories and press releases, and designing and executing local, national and global print and online media campaigns.

Headquartered outside New York City in Middletown, N.J., The Devon Group's U.K. office is located in central London. For more information about The Devon Group, please visit http://www.devonpr.com or follow the Company on Twitter: twitter.com/devongroup.

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Devon Group CEO to Be Panelist During Webinar Discussion on Successful PR Strategies in the Age of Social Media

World Day Against Cyber-Censorship is this coming Monday March 12.

Heres the official description for that:

World Day Against Cyber-Censorship (on 12 March 2011) is intended to rally everyone in support of a single Internet without restrictions and accessible to all. Never have so many countries been affected by some form of online censorship, whether arrests or harassment of netizens, online surveillance, website blocking or the adoption of repressive Internet laws. Netizens are being targeted by government reprisals. Around 120 of them are currently detained for expressing their views freely online. World Day Against Cyber-Censorship pays tribute to them and their fight for Internet freedom.

Google wrote a blog post about its approach to content removal today, gearing up for the event. The company says nothing has changed since it first outlined its approach, four years ago.

At Google, we have a bias in favor of free expressionnot just because its a key tenet of free societies, but also because more information generally means more choice, more power, more economic opportunity and more freedom for people, writes Rachel Whetstone, Senior Vice President, Global Communications and Public Policy. As Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

That said, we recognize that there are limits, she adds. In some areas its obvious where to draw the line. For example, we have an all-product ban on child pornography. But in other areas, like extremism, it gets complicated because our products are available in numerous countries with widely varying laws and cultures.

Google says it takes down as little as possible when it comes to search, though it does remove content from results when required by law. As far as Googles user-generated content sites, it relies on use guidelines and polices these sites (like YouTube, Blogger, Google+, etc.) accordingly.

Google, of course, has its transparency report, where you can go anytime to see content removal requests (as well as data requests) by country.

Last month, an Indian court ordered some web companies, including Google (and Facebook), to filter some content deemed morally or religiously objectionable.

Read this article:
Google On How It Censors Content (Ahead Of World Day Against Cyber-Censorship)

A couple of years ago, with Amazon steadily pushing down the prices of e-books, the fortunes of the big book publishers were sinking fast. Then Apple (NSDQ:AAPL - News) came along and helped enable publishers to set their own prices for their e-books across platforms. That model, known as agency pricing, has helped keep big publishers afloat in a time of major transition. But its also sparked controversy and legal battles, including threats this week of a lawsuit by the Department of Justice against Apple and its publishing partners. So who should be able to set e-book pricesthe major publishing houses or retailers like Amazon? (NSDQ:AMZN - News)

Well, theres been some debate on that question this week at the our office, with two of our writers taking opposite sides. So we decided to let them thrash it out on the site! Below, Mathew Ingram and Laura Owen debate the merits of the agency-pricing model.

Mathew Ingram [MI]: To me, the debate boils down to whether agency pricing is a justifiable and/or sensible approach by publishers to what is happening in their industry. In a nutshell, I would argue that while it might be understandablein the sense that the Big Six are afraid of Amazons growing power in the book business, and want to protect their book margins as much as possibleit is neither justifiable nor (in the long term at least) sensible or advisable.

Theres no question that being a major player in a market that is in the process of being disrupted is not pleasant. Amazon is doing everything it can to not just drive down e-book prices but to disintermediate publishers in a number of other ways, including signing up authors to its own imprint. If you are a giant corporation that is used to controlling the marketplace to a large extentboth in terms of supply and in terms of pricingthen watching a new competitor wrest some of that control away from you is hard to do.

That said, I think agency pricing is unwiseand not just because it has attracted antitrust attention from the U.S. government and the European Union, among others, but because it isnt in the long-term interests of either readers or (I would argue) of publishers themselves. There is a growing body of evidence that lower prices can boost sales of books by orders of magnitudewhich suggests that publishers might actually be shooting themselves in the foot by trying to hang on to higher prices.

Laura Owen [LO]: I think agency pricing actually is in the interest of any reader who supports a vibrant book-buying marketplace that is not dominated by one companyi.e., Amazon.

You say that publishers are giant corporations, but Amazon is much, much larger than any single book publisheror any other book retailer. Because of that, it can undercut chains like Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS - News) on price. It does so consistently on print books and on e-books that are not regulated by agency pricing. In fact, Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch has said that Barnes & Noble has been able to remain competitive in the e-book gamethe company currently has a 26 to 27 percent market share in the e-book marketbecause of agency pricing.

Some may say, So what? I dont feel any loyalty to Barnes & Noble. With the closing of Borders, though, Barnes & Noble is the only remaining bookstore in many communities. Then there are the independent bookstores, which are definitely struggling as well. Through the American Booksellers Associations partnership with the Google (NSDQ:GOOG - News) eBookstore, the indies can sell e-books through their websites. Because of agency pricing, theyre able to offer e-books from big-six publishers at the same price as Amazon. In this way, agency pricing can keep book spending within a community instead of sending it all to Amazon.

In addition, with the impending launch of sites like Bookish (which is quite delayed at the moment), book publishers are getting into selling direct to their customersa move that will be incredibly good for the business. But efforts like that wont go very far if Amazon is consistently undercutting them on price.

MI: Thats a great point, Laura. You are right that agency pricing does to some extent protect independent booksellers, or allow them to compete on more equal footing with Amazon, and I am as much in favor of a competitive bookselling marketplace as I think you are. I also recognize the fact that Amazon is a gigantic corporationand perhaps even one that is using books as a loss leader for other productsand there are risks of having a lot of market power concentrated in the hands of single entity.

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E-Book Smackdown: Who Should Control Pricing—Publishers Or Amazon?