Google is among the best of the best when it comes to search engines. In fact, Google receives over 300 million visitors and well over 2 billion search queries on any given day. Sadly, the average people performing these searches are not using the search engine to its fullest extent.

There are a countless number of ways that you can target your search more effectively and increase your search experience. Below are a few tips to get you started.

Quotes

Use quotes around words that you are looking for together. Otherwise, you will get results that would randomly contain any or all of the keywords you list. Example: “Independence Day”.

Minus Sign (-)

Place a minus sign preceding any words you wish to exclude from your search. Example: “Michael Jackson” -“Jackson 5”. This will only display results for Michael Jackson, unrelated to the Jackson 5.

Plus Sign (+)

Place the plus sign before any words that you want to include in your search. Example: “Michael Jackson” +“Jackson 5”. Now, search results that appear will only showcase topics related to both Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5.

Site

Include the website in your search query when you are looking for something specific on any given site. Example: “Link Building” site:ProspectMX.com. The hits are only related to the topic of choice for the site that’s submitted to the operator. This can also be reversed if you’re trying to get results when you want to exclude a site from your results. Example: “Fashion News” -site:FashionNews.com.

Fail

When you’re searching for negative product reviews or even epic sports fails, consider placing the word “fail” immediately following your initial query. Example: “sports” fail.

InTitle

Starting your search with “InTitle” tells the search engine to limit your hits by containing only those terms in the text of the title. Example: InTitle: “Top 10 Vacation Spots”.

InText

Including “InText” in your search query restricts Google to contain all the words you inquired to appear on the text of the page. Example: InText: “Top 10 Vacation Spots”.

InURL

By placing “InURL” in your search, you are telling the operator to place the words as they appear in the website URL of the search results. Example: InURL: “Top 10 Vacation Spots”.

Happy Googling!

The web is a huge marketplace for promoting and selling your products and services. If you’re not already utilizing the internet to its fullest extent in regards to sales and marketing, you’re missing out and in a huge way! Just having a website can increase sales, grow your customer base, service your current customer base and increase your brand presence and awareness.

Whether or not you’re ready to engage in an in depth internet marketing strategy, there are plenty of free tools available that you can start using today to set goals and plan growth strategies for your site.

The following tools can help you be found on top search engines like Google and Google Maps, especially for local searches that relate to your company. You are able to identify and track specific search trends for relevant keyword or phrases over several months or even years. You can also track and analyze your web traffic, but more importantly, where the traffic comes from and to see what pages are visited the most. You are also able to discover what keywords people are searching for online related to your business while analyzing how many backlinks you obtain. Lastly, you can monitor mentions of your company and how people are talking about your company, both positively and negatively.

So the free tools you ask? Check them out below:

Google Places

With the great emphasis that Google has put on local search, you want to create a free business listing on Google Places so you can engage customers with photos, offers, testimonials, etc.

Google Insights

This tool is a great way to determine if there’s a hot keyword out there that seems to be getting more and more searches. You can compare search volume patterns for keywords related to your business across specific regions, time frames, categories, etc.

Google Analytics

You are able to analyze direct traffic, organic keyword traffic, most popular pages of your site, track goals, and more for free. This is one tool you can’t live without. If you don’t have some sort of analytics tracking installed in your site, how are you able to monitor what’s working and what’s not?

SEMRush

Determine out how much search volume a relevant keyword is getting – or spy on the competition and see what keywords they’re ranking for!

MajesticSEO

Get a cumulative look at how many sites are linking back to yours month over month – or check the same for a competitor! Backlinks are one of the major factors in getting your site ranking for a ton of keywords in the search engines.

Google/Yahoo Alerts

You can sign up to receive weekly, daily or “as it happens” emails from Google and Yahoo whenever someone mentions your brand or products online.

Many of the tools have both free and paid versions. If you’re a beginner, sign up for a free account and determine for yourself if it’s worth paying for the full monty!

Google Instant Search Case Study and Explanation

We have had  a tremendous amount of questions surrounding the topic of Google’s new instant search. Most of the questions  seem to relate to expectations that the business executive should have on the impact of traffic and conversions.

Now that we’ve actually had a week and a half to monitor some phrases that we personally rank for and check the impact of instant search on those keyword phrases, we figured it it would be best to share them with our customers and, of course, you.

I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other about instant search.  It’s almost like in some areas it will be a detriment and others a positive, so it’s almost a wash.  But read below, and I’ll explain why.

How It Used To Be

Before instant search, the default by Google was to offer suggestions in a drop-down fashion as the user would type their query into the search input box. However, no results would be displayed until the user pushed enter or click the search button.

A good example, which we are using in this case study, is the phrase “home value”. As you would type “home value,” you would indeed see suggestions drop down. They would not be that great of an influence, but may give you a few good ideas.

How Google Instant Search Changes Search As We Know It

Google automatically displays the results for the phrase "home values" when a user may be trying to search for "home value."

Now, you’ll notice that by the time you get to the letter “v” in the phrase “home value,” Google has already displayed the searches for the plural term, “home values.” so, “what’s the big deal?” You ask. The big deal, for us anyway, is that our website doesn’t rank on the first page for that  plural term. It does, however, rank for the singular term. So, if Google instant search is followed by the user 100% of the time, then we’d have just lost all of our organic traffic from Google for the term “home value.” In our case, this could literally mean hundreds of dollars every day in revenue.

In this "instant search," the user could be looking for a small business that sold home products and is then distracted by "Home Depot" all over the page along with maps, etc.

Let’s think about a small town hardware store named “Home Store.” Imagine yourself going to Google and searching for, “home store.” Once you type in the first “m,” you have Home Depot staring at you in the face along with a great shiny map. I believe, this small-town store may just lose some sales as a result of instant search.

I’m not stating an opinion one way or the other, only that it’s definitely something that needs to be thought about by the small business owner moving forward about the organic search (and paid search for that matter) marketing that is being done for an organization.

What Our Data Shows About Instant Search Surprised Me

My initial reaction when I saw that Google was automatically displaying the results for “home values,” as you were typing in the phrase “home value” was one of true despair. I assumed that having the results automatically appear for a different phrase would be so much of a distraction that people would automatically flock to them.

This is not what we found out in our data however. I go over this in great detail in the video above, but here is a synopsis.

• Google instant search was launched on September 8, 2010.
• We compared two different sets of data. Both  datasets were individuals searching Google for the phrase “home value” who landed on our page that ranks for that term.
• In the national search results, we have consistently been ranked at number three during the entire time frame of our datasets.
• We compared Wednesday, August 25, 2010 through Sunday, September 5, 2010 to Wednesday, September 8, 2010 through September 19, 2010. This gave us an accurate day by day comparison, because search volumes vary greatly during different days of the week.

The results?

18.64% increase in search traffic from Google after instant search distracted users away from our tested phrase.

We found that even though users are defaulted to search results we do not appear in, we actually saw an increase in traffic from Google of 18.64%. To be honest, I can’t logically explain it.

One of the few things is happening. Either Google is showing different instant search results to different people, and the phrase “home value” is one of them or people are disabling Google instant search. The only other explanation would be that the results are simply being ignored. Maybe the average Google user, who doesn’t live in this stuff every day like we do, is almost seeing them as advertisements and doing what they want to do anyway.

We’ll see how this affects things in the future, but as for now… I’m not nearly as worried as I was 12 days ago.

As you may have heard, we here at ProspectMX are sending Matt Cutts to space.

Well, ok, not the REAL Matt Cutts… and not really into space, but…well watch the video if you haven’t heard.

ProspectMX is Sending Matt Cutts to Space! from Dave Conklin on Vimeo.

That’s right, we had a doll of Matt Cutts made and we’re going to send it on various adventures in the coming months. Hopefully, other prominent members of the SEM community will be on their own adventures, too.

Joe Latrell, a fellow employee, also happens to be a Rocket Scientist (isn’t everyone?). He volunteered to build us a 10 foot rocket to help Matt on his journey.

But there was one critical piece left that we didn’t have for the launch next week.

A name.

So, we polled the community and got a couple great suggestions as to what to call this magnificent beast of a rocket. After much deliberation, crying, voting, and tallying – we have reached a consensus. The rocket will be called…

Drumroll please…

SPAM BLASTER!

Yes, the rocket will be called Spam Blaster. And what better name for the rocket-fueled-speed-machine that will hold Matt Cutts on that fateful day? A phrase that not only encompasses a giant rocket but also Matt Cutt’s day to day responsibilities at Google?

We’re quite pleased with the name and would like to thank everyone that suggested names and voted.

So it’s the final countdown. We have a rocket. We have Matt Cutts. And we have a name.

There’s less than a week left until the launch, so we hope to see you all back here next Monday at 2pm to see how it all goes down.

Note: Jeff Plucker is the newest addition to the ProspectMX team of internet marketing consultants. If your company is in need of SEO or internet marketing in the Atlanta-area and you’re interested in learning more about how ProspectMX can boost your business in 2010, please contact him.

Question: How much do you know about your website and internet business?

What percentage of your revenue is generated online? How many people search for your business? How many people search for what services your business offers? If you increased your online presence by (fill in the blank) percentage what would that do to your bottom line?

Roughly 2 billion searches are done everyday on Google! Is your piece of the internet pie what you want or know you can have?

You can write me a check, I’ll take a picture of it with my cell phone and immediately have it deposited into my account. Takes all of about 2 minutes…

As for traditional advertising… TV, radio, magazines, billboard, etc… while there is a decline in their quantity and effectiveness, I will admit they are not going away. However, newspapers are widely shutting down, going online, or drastically reducing their staff to cope with the change. And how many of you now record shows so you can skip the commercials? With the iPod, CDs and satellite radio who really listens to their radio anymore?

More and more people are “living” on their computer. My brother, for example, shut off his cable and uses the internet’s many options to watch TV, movies, gather news and communicate.

What does all this mean? It means that 2010 is the Year of Internet Marketing!

Get The Most Out Of The Year Of Internet Marketing

“As of 2009, an estimated quarter of Earth’s population uses the services of the Internet.” – Wikipedia.

2010 is the year that successful companies will realize they must have a proactive approach to the internet in order to maximize their overall marketing and sales goals. They must capitalize on the internet’s power and mobility:

• increasing traffic to their website
• converting the traffic into a lead or the lead into a sale

Companies will be capturing the interest of roughly 1.5 billion people that are online everyday. Trust me…this is a piece of pie you want to have!

But what does internet marketing really entail? Is it as simple as just having a website? Or doing a PPC campaign? Or using Social Media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter? Am I restricted to just my website? Or is it one of the dozens of other services out there?

To give a short answer… a true internet marketing campaign entails everything that the internet offers. And everything the internet offers is extensive. Since no one wants to read a blog longer than War and Peace, I will break it down as simple as possible.

The Building Blocks Of Great Internet Marketing

It all starts with the website. People want pretty, but a website needs certain things that sometimes makes pretty – well, pretty difficult. Once you have the design then you must make sure it’s optimized. Pretty doesn’t sell blue widgets. Starting to get a little discomfort in your head?

You must optimize for the search engines. What does that mean? How about your conversion ability? It’s great that you have 1000 people coming to your website a week.  But if they aren’t converting – what have you really accomplished?

What keywords do you rank for? How ARE people coming and how MANY people are coming to your site? What is your competition doing?

Oh… and does anyone have some Tylenol? I have a full blown headache.

The Marketing Piece Of Internet Marketing

Now that we have the website ready – what’s next? Now you have to get it seen. Since you don’t just want your friends and current customers being the only ones on your website – do you do organic? Pay per click? Now more questions come up…

How do I do that? Where do I do that? Is it more important to go from 5th to 2nd, or 12th to 8th? How long does it take? What are the benefits of one versus the other? Are these the only two options?

What happens if I just want to skip this step and use social media marketing? But Facebook will not help my business you say? Twitter is for celebrities like Ashton Kutcher… not my multi-million dollar business! Think again. You have customers that love you… now let’s use them to spread the love!

What about using other people’s websites? What happens when someone uses the internet to harm your business? What can you do? And can it be done wrong? Will Google punish you if it’s done incorrectly? How about blogs, articles, press releases, forums, etc?

Ahhhh… please get me the Extra Strength Tylenol… it’s a full migraine now!

Hire The Right Internet Marketing Firm

How do I know which internet marketing firm is correct for me? How do I know it’s not someone that just wants my money? Or a kid sitting in his basement that I never see? Can you really know “what I want” by just a 15 minute conversation on the phone? Or more importantly can you really know “what I need?”

Because I might want the fries… but an apple is better.

So… 2010 is the year of Internet Marketing. It’s the year more and more companies will maximize their online presence. But it’s important to do it correctly. And it’s important to hire the right firm.

But mostly – it’s important to start early! This is one area you don’t want to wait while your competitor is doing it.

Yes… keep up with the Joneses on this one!