In the world of online marketing, we basically rely on results retrieved through search engines more than we would wish to admit. Our websites are always optimized to make them crawlable and readable at the same time and we put great emphasis on achieving a high ranking in the eyes of Google, primarily. It remains to be seen whether the creatively promoted Bing will make any inroads into what is still a monopoly for Google, but it’s advance should be heralded by everyone in this field.

Bing markets itself as more of a “decision engine,” obviously seeking to set itself apart from Google. It suggests that it is intuitive and can really understand “what we mean” when we try and enter those all important keywords. As such, they will often return a very different set of results as compared to Google and this may in turn provide us Internet marketers with additional ideas and information for our campaigns. We can now turn to a variety of upstart sites to enable us to view interpretations of both Google and Bing (and others) at the same time.

One of our favorites is Bingle, which can be easily added to your browser bar, as can Bing and Google and Stringy. Furia is a very basic option for quick access.

If you want to take this a step further, you can choose to compare results from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, InfoSpace, AltaVista, Lycos and Dogpile using the creative tools provided by Googawho. Search3 also includes a three-way selection tool, choosing from Twitter, Yahoo and eBay.

Make your selection and try analyzing certain results from both sides of the fence, as it were. There’s no such thing as too much information.

What’s your search engine of choice?

Adam Toren

When it comes to corporate branding there’s nothing more powerful than a company’s logo. It is often the first image that the consumer sees and it should firmly represent the very essence of the enterprise as quickly and as forcibly as possible. As we all know, first impressions are everything. This most certainly applies in the business world and as consumers are bombarded on an almost constant basis with images and messages of all kinds, your company logo must really stand out.

Even in such times of recession, or maybe even as a consequence of the downturn, business startups are booming. As hundreds of thousands of people find themselves without work, many are turning to the world of the self-employed and one of their first tasks is to dream up a commercial identity portraying their message to potential clients.

Traditionally, if you wanted to design a logo you had a couple of options. If you had something of an artistic eye you could spend many hours designing your own. You could also take advantage of the many freelance websites out there, such as Scriptlance or Odesk, posting an ad for somebody to create your logo for you. Thirdly, if you had some budget to play with, you could turn to a professional graphic designer, although this would normally be the most expensive option.

Enter Logomyway, a fresh new approach promoted by Irishman Joe Daley. Launched in April 2009, the Dublin-based web platform will post a competition for you to its more than 400 freelance designers. The designers, who hail from as far afield as Hong Kong or Bulgaria, will come up with a logo for you depending on your particular brief.

Harnessing once again the power of the Internet, you may receive hundreds of entries for this competition. As the entries are received they are displayed on logomyway.com in order of the hottest prospects. Competition is open for two weeks before closing and a winner and runner-up declared by the promoting company.

The winning artist receives a prize, dictated by the company looking for the logo, and this typically ranges between $200 and $1,000. This prize money is paid upfront and Logomyway retains 10% for their services. The designer submits his work knowing that the fee will be paid to the winner via an online payment processor upon conclusion.

Joe Daley has been making a living from web promotions since 1998 and has numerous novelty sites promoting greeting cards and customized Google pages, amongst others. His latest venture has become popular amongst smaller companies, many of them with Internet-based marketing operations, who see the power of the web at work and also do not necessarily value the higher rates traditionally charged by graphic design shops.

Daley uses another web phenomenon, Twitter, to keep in touch with his designers and “tweets” every new competition, so that his virtual freelance workforce can get busy. Each artist can submit more than one interpretation and those who are successful are branded as such on the website.

As a company’s logo can be its “shining star” representing the very soul of the business it is little wonder that this concept been successful. Would-be graphic designers out there can get a jump start on their fledgling career aspirations and companies can receive hundreds of visual interpretations to mull over. The cream rises to the top through competition and the company executive can feel that he has really tested the waters, cost-effectively.

Adam Toren

They assume that an In House, Full Time Employee will cost:

• $30,000 base salary
• $6,120 benefits (15% of salary)
• $5,304 vacation, sick time (13% of salary)
• $4,896 payroll taxes (12% of salary)
• $2,856 administrative costs
• $3,600 equipment, maintenance
• $2,100 space and equipment

The total therefore is $54,876 to hire a full time employee in house.

By comparison, their full time virtual assistants cost $950 per month. There are no benefits, vacation or sick time, payroll taxes, admin costs, equipment or maintenance costs, or space and equipment costs. The total you would have to pay on an annual basis is therefore $11,400.

More on BPOVIA:

BPOVIA is the largest virtual assistant service provider in China.

BPOVIA’s primary business objective is to provide small and growing companies with an on-demand and one-stop solution of essential business services varies from data entry, word processing to the tasks require more advanced skills like website design, graphic design, internet research, etc.

BPOVIA believes tapping into cheaper labor overseas isn’t just for large companies, but for mid-sized and small companies as well. Smaller businesses can achieve the same benefits from outsourcing as larger ones. BPOVIA’s major target customer is small and medium sized companies.

I’m not sure how they justify putting maintenance in the cost calculation twice and if all the additional cost assumptions are actually fair representations but even if you cut those extra costs in half, you’re still experiencing significant savings.

This is the first I’ve heard of Chinese virtual assistants – most of the companies I’ve seen are from India or other Asian countries – but it only makes sense that the service would expand to China.

Depending on the task I believe you can hire workers outside of the office to work remotely. I currently have two people (Americans) who work for me on a part time basis every month who I’ve never met before and I found through elance. It’s been a wonderful experience working with them but there are many tasks I would never outsource.

If you are considering outsourcing, make sure that:

1. The tasks are clearly defined and easy to do. If it requires your constant input and having to explain things dozens of times then it’s going to be very difficult to make it work.
2. They can communicate properly in English. I once called one of the largest virtual assistant companies in India and I couldn’t understand the person who picked up the phone. She couldn’t understand my questions either and ended up just telling me to email the company’s help line.
3. They are responsive. With that same Indian company, I did email them thinking that perhaps my experience with the woman on the phone was not necessarily representative of what their other workers were like. I never got a response from my email. Needless to say, I didn’t hire them!

BPOVIA looks ok on paper. The real test will be if they can actually deliver on their promises like the other virtual assistant companies are failing to do.

If you are trying to get your website ranked at the top of the search engines, one of the best tools you can use is iBusinessPromoter. The software helps you identify which keywords you have a chance of ranking for, teaches you how to gain a top 10 ranking for those keywords, helps you build links to your site, creates an easy way for you to submit your site to search engines, and allows you to track how your are doing on an ongoing basis. It’s an all in one tool that looks to be very promising! I’ve used their previous product, IBP9, and was very pleased with it. I’m looking forward to trying out IBP10!

Here are some of the features and benefits in more detail:

Optimize Your Website
IBP10 provides keyword analysis research that helps you find the best keywords for organic SEO and AdWords. It answers questions like: Which keywords get the most searches? How strong is the competition for a special keyword? Which keywords are used by your competitors?

After selecting the best keywords the software will walk you through step-by-step what you need to do on your website to ensure that you will rank in the top 10 Google results.

The company is so confident that it can get you a top 10 ranking for the keywords it suggests that it will give you a money back guarantee if you are not fully satisfied with it.

On the AdWords side it makes buying AdWords less expensive by finding targeted keywords that you only have to pay the minimum to acquire.

Promote

By now I hope you know from reading this blog that to get high rankings you need to get quality inbound links to your site in addition to optimized content. Increased link popularity leads to more visitors which leads to more sales.

IBP10 has a link building tool that will help you identify potential link partners, create emails to contact the website owners, and follow up to see who has come through and linked to you and who needs another push. It is the most powerful tool out there for building links to your site in a natural way that Google and the other search engines love.

IBP10 also has a feature that allows you to automatically submit your site to the search engines, special interest sites, and directories that are relevant to your target audience. Many people think Google is the only game in town but you shouldn’t overlook these other options as they can drive quality, relevant traffic to your site.

Track

How many times have you spent money on a campaign and had no idea how it was performing for you? With IBP10 you have a reliable tracking system that allows you to follow how well you are doing in the search engines for the campaign you created.

The software gives you professional, easy to understand reports that are accurate and detailed. You will quickly be able to see if what you are doing is working or not and also create slick reports for your clients if you sell SEO as a service.

Overall, iBusinessPromoter is a fantastic tool for any business owner looking to get a leg up on the competition in the search engine wars. There are a couple of versions and pricing options so you can pick what’s best for you. There is also a 30 day money back guarantee so if you are not fully satisfied you won’t be out of pocket. I definitely recommend checking it out!

Once again, their website can be found at: iBusinessPromoter. If you would like a review of your website, you can get one for only $100 through ReviewMe.

bizSugar is a Digg-like site for small businesses. The site allows business owners, managers and entrepreneurs to discover, share and vote for the best business tips, trends, news and strategies on the Web.

For anyone who is already a Digg user you will feel quite at home with the layout that bizSugar has chosen. You can view the most immediately popular stories as well as the top stories from today, yesterday, the past week, month and year.

Personally I think it’s a useful service for entrepreneurs. As a business owner I’m always trying to stay on top of news that can impact my company. Because I’m an online business as well, my focus is typically staying on top of topics related to Google, SEO, link building, Page Rank, online marketing, etc.
I have found it difficult to use Digg to get this information. I have customized it through my account but there is no category for “Entrepreneurship.” The closest you get is “Business and Finance” which covers a range of articles that I have no interest in. As a result I waste my time sorting through irrelevant material to get to the stuff that I want.
bizSugar helps weed through all the useless posts to bring you hot information that is relevant to running a business. When I first clicked on the homepage I discovered a number of interesting articles that intrigued me to click further. They included:

• Test: mornings may be best for email marketing
• Recession-Proof Your Business
• Tony Robbins motivates you in 20 minutes: TEDTalks

So far so good bizSugar! These were great articles!

If you come across a story that you think would be of value to other business owners you can add it to the bizSugar system and vote on it. The more bizSugars, or votes, that a story gets, the higher up it ranks, just like the Digg system.

The website is coming out of beta so if you haven’t heard the name before, don’t worry.

Founder John Holsen (usename JohnH) is the most active contributor to bizSugar but he’s not the only one submitting content. There is an active community and, so far, the stories that they are adding are certainly of higher value to business owners compared to what you can find on Digg.

bizSugar gets two thumbs up in my books. I will definitely be back to check up on the latest small business news and hope their membership base continues to grow and add additional quality articles.

Once again, their website can be found at: bizSugar. If you would like a review of your website, you can get one for only $100 through ReviewMe.