It’s always fascinating to read Google’s various blogs, if only because they’re always ahead of the curve. As Internet marketers, it’s important to know what’s on their mind, what new initiatives they’re trying, and how they’re tweaking existing services.

A few days ago, Daphne Dembo, Engineering Director, wrote a post about the way in which Google goes about meeting the challenges of international search. She writes, “Our goal is to make Google’s search be relevant to all people, regardless of their language or country.”

She talks about the process that Google goes through when providing search support for a language, from consulting with Google employees who are native speakers of other languages to “training” the company’s language model by exposing it to a large collection of documents written in that language. Daphen talks about the process of spell corrections, diacritical marks, synonyms, compounding, and stemming - some of which are familiar to English speakers and some which are not.

In today’s global economy, it’s important to embrace international marketing and at least consider offering your website in a variety of languages. Reading about Google’s process gives everyone food for thought.

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Internet marketing is not complicated, yet year after year small businesses die off when they try to make it on the World Wide Web. Often this is simply because they do not know how to approach Internet marketing and thus do not form a strong presence on the Web. You can prevent this by learning how to use Internet marketing to your advantage and gain visibility.

There are dozens of Internet marketing strategies anyone can adopt to gain greater visibility on the Web. In fact, adopting just a couple of successful Internet marketing strategies is all anyone really has to do to start getting noticed and to improve their prestige once they create an online presence.

Here are a few Internet marketing tools every business must have in place to establish a presence on the web.

* Web Linking - If you don’t already have links on your website, then you should think about getting some. Reciprocal linking and quality content are musts because they allow businesses to improve their ranking on the web.

* SEO - Most people find websites by typing keywords into search engines. If you don’t have keyword rich web pages, then the odds are people will have a hard time finding your website. Make sure you load your web pages with keywords and include some of the more popular keywords on each page so people are more likely to pull up your website when they search for those terms on the web.

* Email Marketing - This is a great web promotions tool anyone can use to increase the traffic they receive and to encourage repeat purchases and loyalty from existing customers. Once you start creating a list of clients, you can use email marketing to send creative and interesting information and updates about your products and services.

* Affiliate Marketing - While you may have to pay your affiliates a small sum, most affiliates will go out of their way to make a few bucks. This is good news, because they will work hard to advertise for you and create links for you throughout the web, helping to promote your website in ways you could only dream of. It’s like having an army of advertisers at your fingertips!

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The staff at Majon International would like to wish all of our U.S. friends a happy and safe Thanksgiving. We are thankful to work with wonderful clients and colleagues, and look forward to continuing to serve you to the best of our ability.

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When engaged in international marketing, it is critical that you pay attention to local customs and culture if you want to successfully expand your business. When in another country, many businesspeople find they have much more success luring prospects when they respect and adhere to the cultural customs of the international company with which they conduct business. International marketing is as much about respecting culture as it is about expanding your business in the international markets.

Making Cultural Accommodations

Cultural misunderstandings often result in frustration and the loss of business. International marketing aims to help people communicate clearly and be mindful of their business partner’s cultural ideals, because they often impact how one business partner or client engages when conducting business and why they hold the beliefs they do.

For example, one business partner may find it acceptable when making purchases to pay the highest price possible because they are raised in an environment that teaches that you get what you pay for. The other business client may have been raised in a culture that teaches to pay the cheapest price for the best quality product. When it comes to doing business, the two may be at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

If these cultural differences are not known at the time of negotiations, this could lead to conflict or other problems. International marketing shows business people how important it is to research another client’s cultural customs before engaging in business so these types of conflicts or potential sore spots can be eradicated or minimized.

Local Representatives

Because it is impossible to learn everything about another culture before doing business, many companies find it sensible to hire a local business representative, one that can help a company in the native country. This person can escort visiting business professionals and apprise them of any cultural considerations specific to various events or meetings. This person can also act as a business liaison. This practice is common in international marketing and benefits all parties involved.

Local representatives may be permanent employees that work for the company abroad. If this is the case, a manager or hiring representative will have to fly to the host country to hire this individual. It is best that this person lives in the host country rather than that of the home company to ensure he or she is up-to-date in cultural practices.

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As part of their initiative to promote Yahoo! Small Business Unlimited Web Hosting, the Internet marketing and search company launched a “Seeds for Success” program that awarded each of three female entrepreneurs a grant equaling $20,000. The grant included web site consulting, complimentary Yahoo! Small Business services, and mentoring by a team of business leaders. The grand prize winner, Dana Rubenstein, was awarded an additional $10,000 and promotional support.

Yahoo’s point? That even in the current economic freefall, entrepreneurs can still be successful. The company’s press release included the following statement:

“Entrepreneurs play a critical role in developing a healthy economy, and strategic use of the Internet is crucial in driving the success of small businesses,” said Susan Vobejda, vice president of marketing, Yahoo! Small Business. “In the case of our Seeds for Success finalists, Yahoo!’s tech mentors worked closely with each one to help design and launch Web sites that met their product and marketing needs and the work is paying off. Yahoo! Small Business wants to foster continued online innovation, so we hope this program inspires other women entrepreneurs to turn their passion into a profitable business.”

For those whose small businesses are being buffeted by today’s economic tsunami, it’s important to keep your eye on the prize and not give up.

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There are two primary aspects of increasing web traffic. One is to get new visitors to your site, and the other is to keep your visitors clicking from page to page once they get there. The more visitors who come, and the more time a visitor spends there, the more money your site will generate.

Things to consider in your efforts to get and keep your traffic include:

* Search engine optimization. There’s no getting around it; high search engine rankings might not be everything, but they do matter. It’s just human nature; when a potential visitor looks up something they care about, they will assume that the site listed highest on the list is the most relevant to their concerns. The higher up you appear in certain searches, the more likely you are to get the hits.

* User friendliness. Once you get the rankings that will get people to your site, it’s your job to keep them there for as long as you can. The only way that will happen is if your site is easy to navigate and every page has something interesting for your visitor to see. Don’t trust your own instincts on this; have a newcomer - perhaps a friend or colleague - go to your site for the first time and then report to you how easy or difficult it was to get around.

* Link internally. Don’t link off your site unless you have made a deal to trade links with another site owner. Instead, let it be known what you have on other pages and link directly to them. That way you are keeping everything at home, as it were.

* Add fun stuff. Add features that keep people on the site and keep them coming back. If there is a fun poll, visitors will fill it out and wait to see the results - thereby keeping them on the site longer. If there are forums or blogs, they will post comments and come back later to see if anyone has responded.

* Send stuff out to your visitors. Collect visitor information when they come to your site, and then send out newsletters, updates, coupons, news briefs, or features that link back to your site. If you go to them, rather than making them always come to you, your site remains fresh in their minds.

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Google announced a new feature, SearchWiki, that has the Internet marketing community buzzing. SearchWiki enables users to make notes and comments on their search results, as well as to add, delete, and re-sort the results.

Although the actions that users take don’t affect search results, they can click on the “All notes for this SearchWiki link” and see, according to Google’s announcement, “an aggregated view of which pages have been moved up, deleted, or added, as well as the comments users have added for specific sites.”

If you have a good site with relevant content, the comments that your visitors add will make a difference in how your site is perceived. That’s one of the cornerstones of Internet marketing.

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Article marketing is a powerful tool for Internet marketing. If you have offered readers useful advice, your articles can get them interested enough in what you have to say to go to your website. But people do not have the time or the patience to read through an article that is not helpful, uninteresting, or difficult to read. Remember, on the Internet, the next website is just a click away. If your article is good, that next click will be on your site.

So, how do you write a good article for article marketing? Here are some suggestions.

* Grammar and spelling count. On the Internet, the line is often blurred between oral speech, where spelling doesn’t count, and written communication, where it does. But the Internet is a visual medium, and we can see whether your commas are in the right place. And if you aren’t smart enough to know the difference between “its” and “it’s,” why should I trust you with my health, business, or whatever concern has taken me to your article?

* Make your titles compelling. Even in article directories, several people will have written articles on the same topic. Yours has to stand out, and the title will do just that. Professional article marketers often find that if an article isn’t doing well, they can simply go in and change the title and it will begin to perform better.

* Start strong. A compelling headline will not save a boring first paragraph. The first paragraph should let your readers know the point of the article and why it will interest them. If you can keep them through the first paragraph, chances are good that you will keep them through the whole article.

* Stay strong. The whole article should be filled with good, clear, and helpful information. Don’t get sidetracked and go off topic, and don’t talk about things you don’t know anything about. But say what you know clearly and cleanly, and readers will stay with you until the end.

* Make the most of your resource box. If you can get readers to stick with you to the end of the article, you get your payoff - the resource box. Your information will include a link back to your website and any other information you want people to know. Remember - stay focused, and keep them wanting more.

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Back in May, Microsoft launched Live Search cashback, a program whereby shoppers can earn rewards through shopping at selected retailers using Live Search. According to a recent press release, Microsoft is saying that cashback is “showing traction” in three areas: number of offers, advertiser ROI, and percentage of commercial search queries.

The press release went on to say:

In addition, according to a custom comScore study, in the second quarter of 2008, Microsoft Live Search referred almost 12 percent of total U.S. commercial online transactions and about 13 percent of total U.S. online spending among key retail categories. Microsoft Live Search placed among the top two U.S. engines in five of the 10 key commercial categories for conversion rate, including Computer Hardware, Movies & Videos, Home & Garden, Music, and Travel.

Given that Microsoft is still only pulling about 8.5% of the search market, Internet marketing and advertising folks are wondering about the company’s definition of success.

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Using viral marketing to increase web traffic sounds a bit suspicious, maybe even sinister, as though the marketer were implanting viruses rather than marketing impressions. But it’s not like that at all; viral marketing simply means marketing through word of mouth. With all the sophisticated techniques marketers have come up with to get their clients’ names out to the public, nobody has been able to figure out how to beat a good buzz caused by word of mouth. It spreads news from person to person faster than a flu virus; hence the name, viral marketing.

So, how do you get people talking about your website? There are several effective ways to do this.

* Be creative. Make a video or record a song. Have fun with it, and make it fun for others to watch. Post it on YouTube or other video networks and people will watch. If your website is linked from your video, people will go to your website because they enjoyed your video or song.

* Give stuff away. You don’t have to give out a lot; consider having a drawing or contest for a single product. If a person can enter the drawing once a day, they will come to your site once a day. Once there, they will usually stay for a while and look around.

* Make it easy. Your website should have the option for a visitor to refer the site to a friend, from right there on the home page. Don’t make them go back to their own email account and forward something on. Make it easy for them to tell other people about you.

* Hire ringers. If you aren’t sure how to get people to begin talking, hire some people to do it for you. Many freelance writers will be glad to go into forums or blog comments and mention your site, and even include a link to it. It only takes a little shove to get the ball rolling.

* Use social networking sites. The value of these sites can’t be overestimated. You are in a virtual room with thousands of people, and once they hear you and get excited about you, the people they know will learn about you, too. Word of mouth about your site will spread like a virus!

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