The Search Works will act as an extension of the in-house online team, and oversee the sites’ migration from one platform to another, whilst maintaining online brand visibility. Following the migration, the search specialists will work closely with DK’s online department to drive sales on a multi-channel basis, both online and on the high street. Ultimately, The Search Works will increase interaction across both sites and boost DK’s ranking in search listings.

Lauren Baldwin, Dorling Kindersley’s online editor said: “As a global leader within a highly competitive industry with limited prior SEO in place, we required an agency capable of offering more than just a standard service; we needed specialist insight and strategic recommendations that will help us maximise the digital space. The Search Works is positioned to do just that.”

Gary Reid, The Search Works’ director of search performance said: “The DK brand is a significant new win for The Search Works. Our record of providing winning strategies for large and respected brands means we are able to work with DK’s in-house departments, apply our expertise and help them exceed their business objectives.”

Steve Howe, the operations manager at USASEOPros, said the Las Vegas-based company posted a 12.5 percent increase in weekly sales at the end of the month.

“I’m very happy with our sales team and the great results they posted last week,” Howe said. “Despite this terrible economy, business owners still know our services are a good investment.”

Over the weekend the Federal Reserve announced another financial bailout for insurance giant AIG, this time to the tune of $30 billion.

American International Group posted a shocking $61.7 billion quarterly loss as the global economy continues to struggle against the weight of this recession.

Despite this turmoil, Howe said USA SEO Pros’ search engine optimization business has continued to perform well and exceed expectations.

“One of the great things about our business is that we aren’t just focused in one geographical area,” Howe said. “Our office is in Las Vegas and the recession has hit the area hard, but we have clients from all over. USA SEO Pros is looking forward to another great year in 2009.”

Billions of dollars have already been spent in an effort to stabilize giant companies around the nation, but whether these maneuvers will help is left to be seen.

“I’m grateful that we operate in an industry that has rode out this downturn so well,” Howe said. “Hopefully things will turn around for others soon, but in the meantime I’m just focused on bringing our clients quality results.”

USA SEO Pros has been one of the few success stories in Las Vegas during the recession. Cutbacks along the strip and other casino companies are fueling an estimated 9.1 percent unemployment rate.

“Times are very tough right now,” Howe said. “But we’ve found the best way to succeed is simply not to flinch and keep doing what made you successful in the first place.”

Tom Wilde EveryZing CEOMeidaCloud could prove to be an interesting starting point. It allows companies to post live or archived video, audio, or text content feeds and receive back a rich set of metadata such as speech transcripts, time-stamped tags, categories/topics, named entities, geo-location and tagged thumbnails.

“MediaCloud is a logical next product offering for EveryZing,” said Tom Wilde, EveryZing’s CEO. “Our award-winning ezSEO, ezSEARCH and MetaPlayer products are all based on our core patented metadata capabilities, and MediaCloud now further opens these capabilities and allows our customers to more deeply integrate metadata into their workflow. Quite simply, MediaCloud has the unique capability to receive raw data, and quickly return back to customers the valuable information on which their businesses rely.”

Included in MediaCloud is:

- Real-time processing of live audio and video feeds

- Support for both broadcast and telephony metadata models

- Geo tagging

- Support for over 100 files formats across text, video, audio, and image

- Automatic text alignment for time stamping of closed captioning data

- Dynamic thumbnailing of video assets to create automatic “storyboards”

- English (US, UK) and Spanish language support for audio and video

EveryZing says it has already signed up a significant list of customers for MediaCloud, utilzing it for applications in contextual ad targeting, universal search, video archives, media monitoring, closed captioning, and voicemail-to-text. Customers don’t have to buy any software and only pay for the processing needed.

Future proofing your SEO means that you operate with one eye on where the industry is going as to ensure your efforts hold up over time. This is a wise move not only from stability reasoning but from a financial one as well. That is to say, there is a cost consideration when we have to go back and adapt entire websites with new tactics that we really should have seen coming. Your SEO efforts should always stand the test of time.

Two main types of future-proof SEO approaches;

The safety element - this means we use tactics that we’re fairly certain will work tomorrow and tread lightly on the ones that aren’t. One thing is certain in SEO is that there are fine lines that we cross from what is an acceptable practice, to those we know could get us in hot water. What is border-line today is often against the TOS tomorrow.

This means that tactics you’re employing now might actually harm a website in the near future. Stay well away from the edge my friends… it’s a long we down.

Some common areas include;

• Widget links – we’ve seen an increasing disdain for these and it’s only a matter of time before they are devalued to a point where the exercise has a low ROI on resources invested.

• Tag stuffing – if you’re stuffing image tags, video or even meta-tags… stop it. It really isn’t worth doing and search engines (much like the KW tag) are likely to continue to de-value the weight given these. It will be a waste of time ultimately (IMHO of course).

• Sponsored Templates – another link building tactic that, like widgets, is likely to go the way of the Dodo as search engines crack down on link spam.

• Keyword density (stuffing) – if you’re still doing this, it might be time to give it a rest. Search engine understand people search in 2-3 word phrases. They also understand page themes and concepts are better than linear KW approaches.

• Site-wide links – as search engines get better at page segmentation, links in the footer, header and even side panel positions are likely to be devalued further

• Reciprocal links – while these are still acceptable within reason, the ultimate value given these signals is likely to continue to deteriorate. I wouldn’t actively pursue these, at least in the traditional sense (think content promotion instead).
• Java-script spamming – if you’re using JS to circumvent spam detection, your days are numbered. Search engines are (finally) processing java-script these days.. you have been warned.

… and so forth, you get the idea.

The predictive element – this means having a keen understanding of the search industry and capitalizing on trends before they happen. This means you use your keen sense fortune-telling to try and establish where search engines are going and make sure your optimization programs are positioned for best effect.

Some current areas of interest at the moment are;

• Personalization – we all know that personalization is going to increase in importance which means you need to understand how it works, who’s doing what and how much it affects search rankings.

• Page segmentation – search engine are getting better at page segmentation which means new implications for content creation/organization and link building as well.
• Phrase relations and semantics – understanding how to develop strong themes for pages (onsite and offsite) will be more and more important in SEO moving forward.

• Behavioural – (implicit and explicit) – from explicit signals such as voting buttons and favourites to implicit signals such as behavioural, geographic and demographic targeting will also increase in importance and should be understood.
• Geo-targeting – from personalized search to universal and mobile, geo-targeting is going to be a must for the SEOs of the future.

• Universal (vertical) search – having content creation programs that best utilize the various types of vertical search (images, video, blog search etc..) is another area that you should be considering today – it’s only going to become more ubiquitous in the years ahead.

• Google Suggest – search engines are getting more and more inclined to various recommendations engine elements. A strong understanding of how this works is something every search optimizer should have.

• Common hacking points – an important area of SEO these days is ensuring you don’t get hacked and have nasty links added to your site. In the future, security audits will be an integral part of SEO. Start working with the developers to ensure there is a plan in place.

Once more, it requires that we’re paying attention to what’s going on out there. It doesn’t mean heavily modifying your tactics as much as thinking ahead as to how each will hold up. Planning for a strong ROI on your activities doesn’t end at the end of each month… there is long term ROI to be considered as well. Money invested in borderline tactics could mean a total loss in a a year from now on that investment – or at east a devaluation.

Become a fortune teller

We all know that Gypsies know all about fortune telling so we’d be the place to start. How does one go about future proofing their SEO? Ultimately it will take a more intrinsic sense of where things are headed and we can put ourselves in this mindset by;

1. Staying on top industry news
2. Follow closely statements from the major engines
3. Patents from the big 3 (at very least)
4. Test things so that you understand signal weights (and changes)
5. Stay abreast of the latest research papers from the IR community

Truly, the main point here is that you should always be thinking about strategies that will stand the test of time. This will ultimately save resources (time and money) that could be expended cleaning up problems or wasted on now ineffective link building.The next time you stumble on a new ‘trick’ and think, “I can’t believe this actually works” it would be wise to consider the future.
At very least it may be nullified, at worse penalized.

Playing it safe may not be sexy, but we’re here for the long term. Viability and ROI on search optimization efforts requires forward thinking… will you be ready?

By purchasing Energy Star office equipment and replacing old light bulbs with low-mercury, compact fluorescent lighting, USASEOPros hopes to make things a little bit more “green” this spring.

“Our business has been growing, and we have been in the market for new office equipment,” Steve Howe, the operations manager of USA SEO Pros said. “We wanted high-efficiency, low-consumption equipment and Energy Star branded products can deliver that.”

Summerlin, the Las Vegas community where USASEOPros is located, has been making a public push for individuals and businesses to lower their energy consumption.

The Villa Trieste subdivision in Summerlin opened earlier this year with solar roof panels. The goal is to make desert living as energy efficient as possible.

“We took a look at our office and what the greater community was doing and decided to make some changes,” Howe said. “If USA SEO Pros can do their part to help the environment, so can everyone.”

According to the government sponsored Energy Star website, if all office equipment purchased this year was Energy Star qualified, nearly 3 billion pounds of greenhouse gases would be cut.

That is the equivalent emission of 250,000 vehicles.

Office equipment uses a lot of energy. Computers that used to only run for a few hours a day are now being left on around the clock and can have a real impact on monthly energy bills.

“Our business is internet advertising and marketing, so we run a lot of computers, monitors and printers on a daily basis,” Howe said. “I’m excited that we’ll continue to provide professional results to our clients, but do it in a more socially responsible and energy efficient manner.”

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USA SEO Pros is a search engine optimization company and has been in business for over 6 years. With thousands of satisfied clients and team of highly skilled professionals, USA SEO Pros has continued to grow and expand its business. Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, the company has built itself into a leader in the online advertising and marketing field. USASEOPros.com currently holds nearly 4 million placements for its clients and uses its knowledge and expertise to continue to grow that number.

It’s a fact that being ranked in the top of Google organic search results for industry leading keywords will produce the highest quality traffic without ever costing per click.

You may have heard about Search Engine Optimization or perhaps you’ve spoken to a SEO company about your site. If you have, then you know most of them want an arm and a leg before they’ll even start. Not only do SEO and SEM seem to be a costly venture, but when you ask for some sort of guarantee for the results they promised all you can hear on the other end of the phone is the hollow echo of laughter.

“Either we can do it or we can’t and we let our clients know upfront. If we don’t feel our services will produce the results you want, we won’t waste your time and money. If we don’t produce, we don’t get paid,” says Ashe.

iMajestic believes that all companies desiring SEO or search engine marketing should consider Performance Based Search Engine Optimization as their first viable option.

Recognizing that every business has its own special requirements in order to attain SEO supremacy, iMajestic uses a multitude of methods and technologies that are custom fit for each company. Parlaying the myriad of philosophies into the kind of SEO and SEM that achieve success, iMajestic has a reputation for honing in on what will work and not wasting time or the client’s money.

For more information about this pioneering approach to Internet marketing and business relations go to www.imajestic.com.

About iMajestic:

iMajestic has been in business since 2001 offering practical and sound SEO and SEM solutions with absolute responsibility to thousands of businesses. The ability to forecast trends and rapidly adjust positions that influence those changes is the cornerstone to the foundation of what iMajestic represents. iMajestic is a firm believer in keeping their work force within the Continental United States and uses American based personnel. We have a no outsource guarantee and 100% personal pledge to our clients.