In an effort to be more like Bing, Google has rolled out “Knowledge Graph” what this means is that for some search terms specifically areas such as the following:

- Actor search.

- Movie search.

- Country search.

- History search.

+ many more areas which are non commercial.

This holds a big impact for any one who runs a website in areas such as movie sites, celebrity sites or any other gossip style site. Reason been this new knowledge graph will drive even higher CTR to Google owned properties and keep users on the search pages and they will not go to websites.

At SMX London “Google Fellow” Amit S, claims it will keep users on search longer, I disagree it all goes down to the intent of the user if the user is looking for basic information then they will go straight to the knwoledge graph and bypass websites. This will also drop a huge amount of traffic for Wikipedia, not that it really matters as they are not really revenue focused but I am sure it could have a direct impact on their overall impressions and donations.

Image below of the knowledge graph in play:

Google Knowledge Graph

Google Plus has launched some new features, some what identical to Twitter where on the login screen they promote popular pages and people. My first guess is that this is triggered by the amount of people following the page. This feature was very popular on Twitter back in the day so it will be interesting to see how it develops on Google+.

View example below:

Google+ Featured Users and business pages

I love all types of advertising and this recent campaign by Lynx sets the bar, it is a great use of a unique style of advertising in a CBD setting. The Lynx ad uses the first invisible ad to treat the passers by on the street in a populated area in Sydney. This just shows you that it pays to be different with advertising if you want to stand out!

Bing has started to push marketing in the Australian market, with an estimated marketing budget of around 10 million the company hopes to gain some market share from the dominant Google, who current hold well over 95% market share in the Australian market. In the US market Bing currently has around 30% market share with Google loosing percentage point’s month on month according to recent research. So it will be interesting too see if Bing can get some more market share.
I remember back in 2009 I had a meeting with some senior Bing employees in Australia and they said if they could gain just a few percentage points in the next few years that would be good. A few years on it seems that things have changed and they Bing is now pushing marketing much more aggressively and looks like Australia is a key market for this.

In my eyes they need to work on more effective targeting for Australian customers from the organic point of view, don’t get me wrong I have had some websites rank very well in US Bing for large terms but in the Australian market it does not seem like it is the best at targeting from an organic SEO point of view.

Watch the latest TVC below from the recent bing advertising blitz on Channel 9:

Thank you to every one who entered my Twitter competition for my 2000th Tweet on Twitter, it was a good success with various different online marketers entering. As their can only be one winner I placed all the Twitter user names into a hat and shuffled them and the winner ended up been Perth SEO Bob Jones.

Video of competition draw here:

Stay tuned for more competitions soon, thank you to all who entered!

So this year I have been doing SEO and Online marketing for around 7-8 years, I know this is not a long time by the standards of Bruce Clay and Danny Sullivan who have been doing Internet Marketing for say 16-17 years.

I have out a list of 9 reasons you know you have been doing Online Marketing for a while:

1. You remember when Digital Point Forums was a popular website for SEOs and internet marketers, not just a haven for spammers and eBook sellers as it is now.
2. You remember when you purchased and sold websites on sitepoint.com and not Flippa.com
3. You remember when it was fine by Google to use paid links. (Grey hat)
4. You remember when making $3,000+ a month on Adsense was pretty easy.
5. You remember when every on asked if you were listed on DMoz!
6. You remember when every one cared about the PR of your website as one of the most important metrics!
7. You remember when “link Wheel” was a common strategy.
8. You remember when you used paid bulletins on Myspace to promote websites
9. You remember when people used Myspace layouts heavily for link building (Grey hat)

If you have any thing to add to this list please feel free to do so below in the comments section:

Hi All,

I have been speaking at a few events recently including Sydney SEO Meetups and other local Search based events.

Example of a recent presentation on: SEO and Social Media.

SEO-Meetup

SEO presentation

We had a decent crowd at this event with around 50+ people turning up for the presentation.

SEO Event

SMX-logo

SMX Sydney

SMX Agenda time

I hope to see every one at the event.

Hello everyone,

I have decided to have a competition on my blog for my 2000th Tweet,

SEO Prize

What is in this prize pack?

1 x Extra Large Facebook Hack Sydney Shirt white (Australia)
1 x Extra Large Navy Blue Facebook shirt.
1 x Large Acquisio Black shirt – “I report to no one” shirt.
1 x Facebook stickers Hack Sydney.
1 x Facebook stickers.

(All items are new and never been used, come with no tags)

How do I win?

To enter this competition all you need to do is post the following (exactly) onto Twitter: http://twitter.com

I have entered into the #competition on http://jamesnorquay.com to win great SEO and Search goodies, run by @connections8 Australian SEO.

Conditions of the competition:

Please note I will send this prize (100% paid for by me to the following countries)

- Australia
- United States
- United Kingdom
- Canada

- Countries which fall outside this region, I may not include postage too, please confirm your location in the comments field below.
- Competition start date – Thursday 26th April 2012 (6pm Australia eastern Standard time)
- Competition will be drawn on the following date: Saturday the 5th of May 2012 (11.30am Australian eastern standard time)
I will enter all competition entrants into a hat and draw a winner from random)
- Their is only 1 winner of the above prize pack.
- If you have any questions please ask in the comments field below, Good luck and please share with friends.

Google has changed the way its home page looks today to celebrate the creator of the Zipper, Gideon Sundback the creator of the Zipper was celebrated when you tear down the zipper.

Google-Zipper

I have decided to put up a short post on some basic GEO ranking factors:

Was recently trawling over some of Matt Cutt’s Twitter posts (see below) and I noticed he recently posted saying IP address is a direct ranking factor. I have been using this as a point in a wider strategy for Server speed and SEO for a long time but I see many people still saying IP and Server location has no direct impact on your SEO efforts.

IP Address

The basis should be host your website where your user base is and use a GEO specific domain name which targets your USER base. If you are in the Australian market use .com.au domains and also use local content writers.

5 Key points on GEO ranking factors:

1. USE local IP addresses for hosting.
2. USE local TLD domain names – targeting Australia use .com.au
3. USE local content writers for localized content.
4. USE local based severs near your user base.
5. Acquire backlinks from local websites, i.e link building for an Aussie site target .com.au/ .net.au/ .edu.au/ .org.au link targets in the majority of your link profile.