BusinessMBA.org has a great infographic detailing Google by the Numbers. This shows:
Google had $29.3 Billion in revenue in 2010
Google’s revenue was more than the GDP of the 28 poorest comtries combined
$2.5 Billion came from mobile ads.
Most expensive AdWords categories are: Insurance, Loans, Mortgage, Attorney and Credit
Google gets over 1 Billion unique visitors each month. That’s 1 out of every 7 people on Earth.
If you base how much Google is worth on their 2010 revenue and apply a very conservative multiple of 4. Google is worth $117.2 Billion. That’s well below their current market cap of $199 Billion.

From: BusinessMBA.org

The bottom line: What happens in social media affects search engine rankings. In this meetup, we will discuss the social signals in search. We will learn how social media is connected to search.

The major search engines have made a commitment to social media. What you do on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ factors into ranking algorithms. It is not just your social media interactions, but also your site. In this session, we will provide tips for webmasters to make their site more accessible and “social media friendly”. From extensions to conversation, we will discuss the integration of social and search.

With the recent announcement about Google+ integrating into Google search results the impact is even stronger. However, how does that affect you? What does that mean to social media? Learn social tips that can help you with a stronger search presence.

Local search and social expert, John Ellis of Crescent Interactive (http://www.crescentinteractive.com) will lead the discussion. Crescent Interactive is an online marketing firm specializing in search engine marketing and social media. John is a frequent industry contributor to the Nashville technical and marketing community, including leading PodCamp and BarCamp Nashville.

In addition to John’s presentation, we’ll also be doing a group review of a website, brainstorming ideas on how the website & company could better market themselves. Want us to review your website? Let me know about your situation and we’ll get you on the schedule.

Finally, we’ll close the evening with an open Q & A discussion of SEO and all things related to Internet Marketing.

What: Social Signals in Search
When: Thursday, February 23, 2012 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: Art Institute of TN
Cost: Free (with no sales pitches, just show up & learn with us)
RSVP: Nashville SEO & Internet Marketing Group
Join us Thursday night to discuss and learn Internet Marketing.
Please RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/Nashville-SEO-Group/
Even if you can’t make it to this meetup, you can signup there to get alerts of upcoming meetups.
Founded in 2010, the Nashville SEO Group is a free Special Interest Group (SIG) that meets every month to discuss Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.
Led by Ross Jones of 2 the Top Web Site Design & Promotion, the Nashville SEO SIG welcomes anyone who wants to learn more about how Search Engine Optimization works.

According to Google Employee AdWordsEng Laura in this AdWords Support thread, it’s most likely that you’ve been banned for clicking on yout own ads or for encouraging others to click on your ads.

I don’t think there’s any connection between AdWords suspensions and AdSense ones. AdSense “invalid clicks” suspensions are usually just that: publishers clicking on their own ads or encouraging their visitors to do so. If you think you didn’t violate that policy, contact AdWords support.

Props to Barry Schwartz of SERoundtable for pointing me to that quote.

The good news is that you can file a reinclusion request if you’ve been kicked out of AdSense:
AdSense Invalid Clicks Reinclusion Request Form

Back in the day, one of my sites was banned from AdSense for encouraging clicks and it was difficult to find reliable information and the reinclusion request form. Since then, Google’s made it alot easier to  get info on why you were banned and what to do about it. But if you’ve flagrantly violated their terms with invalid clicks, it’s probably time to give up on AdSense and look for other forms of monetization like affiliate marketing.

This will be the best SEO meetup we’ve had in Nashville. Don’t miss it!

In our January Internet Marketing & SEO meeting, we’ll cover in detail how to construct the Perfectly Optimized web page. You’ll learn exactly where are the “Right Places” that you need to place the “Right Words” in order to make Google sit up and take notice.

Whether you’re a novice or a pro, you’ll be able to repeat the process on your own web pages and start making your way 2 The Top of the search engine rankings.

At every meeting, we discuss what you can do to help your website rank better in Google and the other search engines. After our presentation, we’ll be doing a site review of a website belonging to one of our members. Want to have your website reviewed? Send me an email with a few details about your website & we’ll get your site on the schedule.

Finally, we’ll close the evening with an open Q & A discussion of SEO and all things related to Internet Marketing.

New Location
Art Institute of Nashville, 100 Centerview Drive, Nashville, TN RM 2088
AI Nashville offers a 1 yr diploma, an Associates Degree and a Bachelors Degree in Web Design. I teach an Internet Marketing class to seniors and AI has offered their location for our meetup.

AI-Nashville is the large white building at I-40 and Stewarts Ferry. Follow the Argosy/Art Institute signs from Stewarts Ferry to McCrory Creek Rd. Then 1st left onto the campus. Park and enter through the front. Get a visitors badge from security. Our meeting is in RM 2088, the Video Lab. Please show up early as we’ll have a packed room!

What: Perfect SEO: Creating a Perfectly Optimized Page
When: Thursday, January 26, 2012, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: Art Institute of Nashville, 100 Centerview Drive, 1st Floor Activities Room
Cost: Free (with no sales pitches, just show up & learn with us)
RSVP: Nashville SEO & Internet Marketing Group
Join us Thursday night to discuss and learn Internet Marketing.
Please RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/Nashville-SEO-Group/events/37693202/
Even if you can’t make it to this meetup, you can signup there to get alerts of upcoming meetups.
Founded in 2010, the Nashville SEO Group is a free Special Interest Group (SIG) that meets every month to discuss Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.
Led by Ross Jones of 2 the Top Web Site Design & Promotion, the Nashville SEO SIG welcomes anyone who wants to learn more about how Search Engine Optimization works.

If you found this picture / post when you did that, leave a comment below, add me to your Circles or Plus One this post.

As I told my Internet Marketing class last night, Google has been adding personalization into search for years.

In the past, they’ve boosted results that were near you: showing a local pizza place instead of one that’s 500 miles away. They’ve also increased the rankings of web pages that you’ve visited before or that your friends have shared via social networking.

Those changes were relatively minor compared to Google Search Plus Your World.

If you’re logged into a Google account, you’ll see a notice like this one:

.

When I searched for photos, my results showed image results from 2 friends plus a photo from my own G+ photo albums. There’s a new section in the right column with “People and Pages on Google+ related to photos” with suggested search results. I also see a couple of personalized websites in the normal organic results.

Privacy concerns?

While it might be unsettling to see your personal photos showing up on a Google search, they assure us that the photos that you have not shared with the “Public” are not visbile to everyone. If you’ve already shared the photos with family and friends via Google+ Circles, those people will be able to see them. Nobody else will see your private photos when they do a Google search.

It’s common for Google to make small adjustments to how they rank and display results, but the new Search Plus Your World is a massive change. In another post, we’ll look into how you can take advantage of this change to get more visibility for your business, your organization or your brand.

Help me test how the new search works and I’ll share my findings with you. Two ways you can help:

1) Leave a comment here about how you found this or +1 this post and comment @ G+.
2) Add me to your G+ circles and then search for photos. Did this post show in your results?

Here’s a quick roundup of several of the best free barcode generators available.

QR Code Generator by Kaywa

The barcode maker at Kaywa is definitely my favorite smartphone QR code generator and I’ve used it many times over the past years. You can generate a QR that points to a web address, a phone number, plain text or event that sends a text from your smartphone. It also lets you select to create a Small, Medium, Large or Extra Large QR code. It’s fast simple and easy to create a free QR code with this free tool.

Tec-IT.com Online Barcode Maker

This barcode maker from Tec-it.com is an online tool that can create many different types of barcodes like EAN, UPC, GS1 DataBar, Code-128, QR Code, Data Matrix, PDF417, Postal Codes, ISBN. There’s an option to embed their barcode generator on your website.

Snap My Info QR Code Generator

SnapMyInfo barcode maker is a very simple to use tool that allows you to generate two dimensional barcodes based on any text that you want to type into a field on their website.

QRdvark QR Code Generator

This tool from QRdvark seems really promising. It allows for quick creation of many different types of QR barcodes including text, email, url, location, contact and calendar events. You can select from several different sizes and even allows for an error correction option. QRdvark also offers a QR code reader for your Android smartphone.

I asked Kunal if the Likes from your Facebook Friends impact the rankings you see. He said that Bing is considering using that as a scoring factor but it’s not impacting the rankings today. (I later found a May 2011 Bing post that said the opposite. Have they rolled it back?) Just knowing that some of my friends have liked a company should help me get better results. The problem is that on a handful of Bing searches, it seems that Facebook Likes from my friends are HURTING the ranking of web pages.

Example Search: Nashville

Kunal had used a search on Nashville as his example so I did the same. Hmm, that’s weird. It looks like the result on the 1st page with the most likes from my social connnections is actually pushed down. Must just be a fluke. Let’s try another search.

Example Search: Knoxville

Wow. #1 & 2 are reversed when I log in & out of Facebook. The result that is liked by my friend Megan is pushed down. Just for fun, I logged in & out of FB, switched browsers, switched computer & repeated the search. The one Megan liked was always pushed down.

Example Search: Airlines

Alot of my friends like Southwest Airlines but Southwest.com is #5 when I see those likes. Logged out of Facebook, Southwest is #1. Apparently, Bing likes Southwest more when they ignore my friends.

To be fair, I’ve now done some other searches on Bing where Facebook Likes seem to have no impact on rankings. And eventually, I did find a search with the opposite situation. CapitalOne.com was not on the 1st page for “bank” while logged out. I logged into FB & it shows up with a Like from one of my friends. Now that seems more intuitive: a result liked by my friend should be promoted.

My point is simply that the 1st 3 searches I did on Bing seem to show that Bing punishes websites that my Friends Like on FB. Is Bing trying to tell me something about my friends?

In the official Bing Search Blog, I found a statement different than what Kunal said:

“Bing will surface results, which may typically have been on page three or four, higher in its results based on stuff your friends have liked.”

That makes more sense than what I’ve seen in my limited use of Bing today. My guess is the results I documented are either some unintended problems with “Friend Effect” on Bing or I simply happened to catch Bing cycling through different results. Either way, they missed an opportunity to impress me.

Try a few searches on Bing while logged in and out of FB. Does Bing trust your friends?

Remember to be careful about NEVER clicking on links in a suspicious email. Even if you recognize the sender, you should be wary of clicking any links that feel suspicious. Things that made this email feel suspicous to me:

1) It says I incorrectly filed my taxes but I’ve never filed Australian Taxes.

2) I’ve never had any dealings that would fall under the Australian Taxation Office.

4) There’s an unsolicited link in the email

If you want to keep your computer clean. Never click on a link in an unsolicited email.

Here’s the full details of the email I got:

From: donotreply@ato.gov.au

Subject: Your tax return was incorrectly filled out

Attention: Owner/ Manager

We would like to inform you that you have made mistakes while completing the last tax form application (ID: 703426925598) .
Please follow the advice of our tax specialists HERE

Please amend the mistakes and send the corrected tax return to your tax agent as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

*************************************

The real Australian Taxation Office has a page that specifically talks about phishing emails like this one:
http://www.ato.gov.au/onlineservices/distributor.aspx?menuid=0&doc=/content/62347.htm&page=7#P224_10964

Remember, NEVER click on links in a suspicious email. Do a quick search to see if others have gotten the same email. You’re more likely to stay safe that way.

Everybody knows they want to rank #1 on Google but what’s that top ranking actually worth to you? Can you really put a dollar figure on the value of a #1 Google ranking?

Yes!

Establishing this value is a critical step in creating a proper SEO & Internet Marketing Campaign. The main reason is to set realistic expectations and budgets. Is it logical to expect a budget of $100 will bring in $100,000 of new business? Probably not.

There’s 2 primary ways that you can establish the value of a top rank:
1) Quick Estimate based on the market cost of the keyword phrase
2) Comprehesive Estimate based on your specific situation

For many businesses, a quick estimate is going to be good enough to get a ballpark. Here’s how to do it:

Plug your keyword phrase into the Google AdWords Keyword Estimate tool.
Multiply the Monthly Searches by the Approximate CPC (Cost Per Click).
Multiply that amount by your listing’s expected Click Thru Rate (CTR).
30% is a rough estimate of how many searchers will click on the #1 listing in Google.

Follow this example:

“Salon Nashville” gets 6,600 monthly searches on Google (phrase match).
The approximate CPC is $2.
6,600 searches times $2 cost per click times a 35% click thru rate = $3,960.

So using the Google tools, we can estimate that we’d pay $3,960 per month to be the #1 listing on Google for “Salon Nashville.” The annual value of that #1 ranking on Google would be $47,520.

Is this a Good Estimate of a Top Ranking on Google?
First, we’re using Google’s number of estimated searches so that’s better data than we can get elsewhere. Second, the “Approximate CPC” is based upon what your competitors are actually paying Google to show up on that that search. It might not be what you think it should be but it is the real market value of ranking for that keyword on Google. Finally, we can look at multiple studies to determine how many searchers click on the 1st Google listing vs the rest of the page. Most studies have shown between 34 and 42% click on the 1st non-paid Google result. However, I believe that the average has gone down over time so I’m more comfortable using 30%.

If you wanted to get a more Comprehensive Estimate of the value, you’d need to consider things like:
Actual CTR from Google to your website. Yours might be higher or lower than 30%.
Actual Conversion rate of visitors on your website. How many visitors actually contact you and become leads?
Actual Conversion rate of leads into clients. Do they actualy come in the salon?
Average Customer Ticket. How much does your average client spend on a visit?
Average Margin Rate. What’s the profit on your products and services?
Average Customer Lifespan. How long do you retain your clients? How often do they come back?
What’s the lifetime value of your average client?

Once you’ve established the value of your top ranking on Google, it’s easier to set a realistic marketing budget and plan for your growth. The Small Business Administration and SCORE.org say a proper marketing budget is often between 2% and 10% of sales. However, if your conversion rate or profit margin is very high, a higher budget might make sense. Either way, knowing the value of top rankings will make your job easier and should help contribute to long term success.

New post: How Much is Google Worth? 2010 Revenue Stats updated 2/13/2012

Every month, the Nashville SEO & Internet Marketing Group shares tips and discuss how Search Engine Optimization can help your business grow.

In our October meeting, we’ll be doing a group review of several websites. Together, we’ll brainstorm online marketing ideas your website can use including SEO, Linkedin, Facebook, YouTube, email marketing and anything else we can dream up.

While the reviews will initially focus on Internet Marketing, we’ll brainstorm ideas on general website improvements and outside the box ideas for offline marketing as well.

Want us to review your website? Fill in the form below and let me know why you need a free website review.

Even if we don’t review your website, it’s a great learning tool to be part of the discussions as 20-30 individuals give their unique perspectives on website improvements. Come learn and network with us Thursday night!

RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/Nashville-SEO-Group/events/37256092/