YouTube Gives Backlinks to Your Website »

YouTube has added a new ‘As Seen On’ link that will reward websites that send traffic to YouTube.  When a website embeds a video on one of their pages and that sends a high enough amount of traffic to YouTube, the site will get a little recognition and maybe a little traffic as well.

The new backlink feature won’t help your site rank better in Google because it will be nofollow-ed, but it could introduce your web site to a new audience and could help send some traffic love back to you and reward you for your blog readership building efforts.

Google Owns SEO Firm »

When Google purchased DoubleClick, they also became the owners of Performics, a Search Engine Optimization company.

Some have called this a conflict of interest and even unethical. I don’t know about unethical, but it does seem that Google is talking out of both sides of their mouth.

Our web design blog has more details and perspective.

Search Engine Market Share for October »

According to a comScore release, Google has made one of the largest single-month jumps in Search Engine market share. In September, Google fielded about 57% of U.S. online searches. But in October, their percentage increased to 58.5%.This translates to Google handling 6.1 Billion of the 10.5 Billion tracked U.S. Internet searches. That is why their stock has gone through the roof and is expected to go even higher.

All of this data does not bode well for the other Search Engines. MSN has said they are shooting to be the number two player in the market in three to five years and Barry Diller said over a year ago that Ask.com is planning to make strides in Search as well.

Here is a sweet Flash graphic for all you visual people out there. Mouseover it.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://crystalcoasttech.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/seo.swf" height="200" width="200" /]Adapted from a pie chart that we downloaded from krazydad. What a great job!

We’re Number Two! »

That is what Microsoft hopes to be saying about its Internet Advertising Market share in three to five years, according to a report on Reuters. Actually, they want to be in the top two but normally, a company shoot for the number one spot straight away. However, in the $40 Billion a year online advertising market, number two is not that bad.

Microsoft is currently behind the front runner in Internet advertising, Google and the next in line is Yahoo!.

In order for Microsoft to increase their share of that advertising pie, they have their work cut out for them. The president of Microsoft’s platforms and services division, Kevin Johnson, has outlined the company’s plan:

• Increase their market share in Web search (they want to have a 30% share – currently, they are about 10%)
• Increase the number of page views of the company’s web sites
• Increase the percentage of time Internet users spend in the company’s websites and
• Increase the number of advertising dollars they grab.

They are evidently serious because earlier this year, they spent $6 billion to purchase digital advertising firm aQuantive.

Free Web Site Analytics »

Earlier this year, I posted about tracking visitors that come to your web site and with this post, I wanted to give some examples of a couple of free tools that you can use on your site to do just that.

First, the one that we use mostly: Google Analytics. If you are interested in knowing who visits your web site, where they came from, what pages of your site they visited and how long they stayed on each page AND you want to see it all with pretty looking Flash graphics, then Google Analytics is for you. Did I mention that it is free? Signup for an account, get your personalized tracking code, paste it into each page of your web site you want to track and you will be checking web stats in no time flat.

Last, another popular one: Webalizer. This is one that is often offered for free from your web host. Typically, when you signup for web hosting, Webalizer will be included in your hosting package. The interface is simple and clean but it doesn’t track as much data as Google Analytics. But with Webalizer, you don’t have to signup for anything special and you don’t have to manually install any tracking code into the pages of your web site. So it is a good option for ones who are not comfortable working with web site code.

These are only two. One is what I would call “high-end” and the other is perhaps “economy class”. They both will get you where you want to go and they both are free, but Google Analytics is more classy whereas Webalizer is simply functional and not real big on frills.

Whatever you choose, a web site analytics program is the best way to check the performance of your web site.