10e20 Blog

Yesterday I spoke to Pete Barlas from Investor’s Business Daily (regarding Microsoft’s recent acquisition of online ad firm aQuantive for $6 Billion) and my quick thoughts are in today’s paper:

….just Thursday, ad agency WPP Group agreed to buy 24/7 Media, another ad services company, for $650 million. Microsoft had been rumored to be mulling its own acquisitions of DoubleClick and 24/7. Shares of ValueClick, another online ad firm, rose more than 13% Friday before closing up 7.6%.

“The amazing thing about this is that it makes Google look smart,” said Chris Winfield, president of 10e20, a search marketing firm.

What I was referring to was Google’s recent acquisition of DoubleClick for about half the price. When the news of that deal first came out, a lot of people were a bit surprised at how much Google paid but now it looks (on the surface) like they got a steal compared to the $6 billion Microsoft just shelled out. Good discussion at ThreadWatch on the issue.

Yesterday I did Rush Hour, which is an excellent Webmaster Radio show hosted by Neil Patel, Cameron Olthuis and Carolyn Shelby. I went on to discuss the recent fracas at Digg, how Ron Paul is ruining Digg, alternatives, Truemors (and whether or not it will damage Guy Kawasaki’s reputation) and why I am still not sold on Twitter (but I am willing to be). During the show someone allegging to be Digg founder Kevin Rose called in (but the jury is still out on that).

Listen to the full show on the player below or download a direct MP3 link here.

I know we focus on social media a lot here on the 10e20 blog but at the end of the day I still view SMO (or SMM) as part of the search engine optimization toolbox.

“Being at the top of Google is probably the most important factor in your whole marketing plan online,” says Chris Winfield, president of 10e20 LLC, a global search marketing and Web solutions company in New York. “Nothing comes close to being able to match it with people looking for what you do.”

Whatever you need to do to get there - do it.

As I told Stacy when she was doing the interview - I don’t believe that anyone knows what Google’s ’secret sauce’ is (not any of the engineers, not even Larry or Serge) because it’s evolved so much beyond any one thing. So obviously you aren’t going to get an answer to Google’s secrets in this article but its a really good read nonetheless with feedback from myself, Matt Cutts, Rand Fishkin and others.

Yesterday Microsoft launched their PPC advertising system AdCenter in Canada. I got a call from a reporter at the Ottawa Citizen about it and shared my thoughts.

Chris Winfield, president of 10e20 LLC, a web design firm that specializes in helping smaller companies create targeted ads, said the new offering is appealing, but Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do.

“ I don’t think any time in the near future they will catch Google. It is obviously their intention to. They are not in a position yet to even get close,” he said. “ Right now, they are third place in terms of search traffic. They are third behind Google and Yahoo!”

Does anyone actually feel differently? Andrew Goodman summed it up pretty well yesterday with this post on Search Newz.

You can check out the full article here (no direct links so JPG instead).

Last week I took a look at a site for USA Today’s Jeff Graham and gave my feedback on some of the things that they should be concentrating to help raise their rankings for Google. The site (yourheartfeltsolutions.com) is owned by Yaffa Balsam and is for her small family therapy practice in California:

USA TODAY asked Chris Winfield, president of website consultant 10e20, to look at Balsam’s site, yourheartfeltsolutions.com, identify its weaknesses and offer tips on how to improve her rankings. His recommendations are instrumental for anyone with a website, as they are pretty universal.

You can read the full article here or in the Money section of the print edition.