Yahoo! has decided, after eight years, to spend some energy improving Flickr. This is great news.
Specifically, there are three new improvements to Flickr that I think make it worth sharing photos (and videos) to again. Here they are (in a nutshell):
Besides, these cool new improvements to Flickr, you can also share your photos in full resolution, a bonus if you are a professional photographer.
So What Can Flickr Be Used For?
Bloggers used to use Flickr as a place to store photos that they could use for their blogs. Today, WordPress makes that a whole lot easier. But if you aren’t using WordPress, or if you do other kinds of content marketing online using services like Squidoo and HubPages, then Flickr is still a great place to store and share photos. And with 1 terabyte of storage space, you should never run out of storage.
I don’t think paying for services like Dropbox is necessary unless you’ve got so many photos and videos that sites like Flickr are too primitive. In that case, store your limit on Flickr then buy a premium Drobox account.
USA Today reported today that Yahoo! has purchased Tumblr for $1.1 billion. The funny thing is they promise “not to screw it up.”
People who have followed Yahoo! around for the past decade understand that comment. They have a bad habit of buying up properties only to close them down or do nothing with them. It’s a running joke in Internet marketing circles.
Joke aside, however, is it possible that Yahoo! could renege on its promise? It’s possible, but I don’t think it’s likely to happen because there’s a new CEO at the helm. Marissa Mayer, a former Googler, understands the value of high profile acquisitions. By virtue of her place at Google for so many years, she knows a good thing when she sees it. Now is her time to prove it.
Something caught my eye in the USA Today article, though.
Tumblr is also ahead of Yahoo in chasing after customers who use smartphones to access their sites, Mayer said. More than half of Tumblr’s users are using the mobile app and conduct an average of seven sessions per day, Mayer said.
This could be an opportunity for Yahoo! to capture the smartphone market. If so many Tumblr users are tuned into their smartphones, then it could be the place where Yahoo! shines in terms of future revenue and market share. Yahoo!’s advertising model is way less expensive than Google’s. The question is, how will they capitalize in their differences in the coming decade?
Twitter and Google got their very public divorce in 2011 after a brief flirtation period with realtime search. Since then, Google has deployed Google+ to mostly positive results. Twitter has been dating and looking for a replacement. Now, they’re in deep with Yahoo!
This is an interesting partnership for several reasons.
First and foremost, Yahoo! is not a search giant. They enjoy only 5% of the search market. Still, that’s a big market when you think about it. Yahoo! is still one of the most trafficked websites on the Web.
This deal looks to be better for Yahoo! than Twitter on the surface of things. I mean, what’s to be gained from this relationship for Twitter other than having additional capital to use for other things? Yahoo! is getting a big asset to beef up its SERPs.
The announcement indicates that Yahoo! is planning to beef up its content with tweets in the following areas: “sports, entertainment, music, and more.” It’s unclear how it will benefit regular search marketers.
Nevertheless, I expect that there will be ways for the run-of-the-mill search engine marketer to capitalize on this relationship – particularly if you are in one of the above-mentioned niches.
What do you think? Is this a good deal for Yahoo!? How about Twitter?
The next phase of video marketing has begun. Not too long ago, YouTube rolled out live streaming videos for specific channels. This past week, however, they opened up live streaming to anyone with a channel of more than 1,000 subscribers. That’s almost everybody.
If you are just getting started in video marketing or you are well on your way to reaching 1,000 subscribers, then you have a measurable goal to strive for.
Once you hit 1,000 YouTube subscribers, then you can enjoy some of the great benefits of live streaming. Features of the service include:
Real-time transcoding into every conceivable format
Showing multiple camera angles
Closed captions
Ads and slates
Any device supported
Here’s how you can know if you are eligible for live streaming on your YouTube channel:
If you want to know if you are eligible, simply check your account features page. If you’re eligible, you’ll see an “enable” button and there you’ll be able to sign up. YouTube says that live streaming capabilities will officially come to these channels in the following weeks.
With live streaming, you can reach audiences right now. You don’t have to wait for your video to parse and go live. You can record it online and make offers, take orders, receive call-ins, etc. Anything you can do on a live TV show can be done on YouTube. Welcome to the 21st century!
Social networking site Pinterest has improved its experience for mobile users. Specifically, they’ve added notifications, mentions, and better search.
The author of the article linked to above says:
I know for a fact that many of my Pinterest-fiend friends simply choose to not bother with Pinterest at all unless they’re sitting in front of their desktops.
That’s not uncommon, actually. Unless webmasters make sure that their websites are mobile accessible, it is likely they will lose traffic and lose revenues. That includes your website. Not only do you need to make sure that it offers a great user experience for desktop browsers, but you’ve got to make your website mobile-ready. You should also make sure it is Pinterest-ready.
Luckily, in 2013, there are some tools that can make your HTML website or WordPress blog or website mobile ready in a few clicks. WordPress has plugins. There is at least one website that you can use to turn your HTML website into a mobile-ready website for a monthly subscription fee. I’m not ready to recommend any of those, but they do exist. Another option is to hire a web development firm to help you make your site mobile-ready. In most cases, it’s not that expensive. But it is necessary.
Google’s head of web spam, Matt Cutts, posted a video on YouTube recently telling us what algorithm changes Google is planning to take this summer. There are 10 specific issues Google is planning to address. I’m going to take a stab at it and say the most important of these are:
The “major” Penguin update
“Going upstream” to address link spam
Authority boost
Soften impact of Panda on sites in the “gray area”
It’s hard to say whether the “more sophisticated link analysis” is going to be a big deal until it happens, but Matt Cutts seems excited about it. I don’t think it will be as big a deal as the authority-boosting algorithm change if Google does what the SEO community has suspected it will do.
Many of the changes being planned are attempts to get ahead of the link spam and SERP spam problem that has plagued Google since its first days of existence.
The rest of the changes will affect most of us but mostly for the positive.
Without further ado, I’ll let you watch the video and judge for yourself the value of these changes. Which ones look the most promising to you?
Google might have the lion’s share of the search market, but Bing and Yahoo! are still important. Between them, they have close to 15% of the search market. Of course, they fluctuate up and down and at times have a total of 20% between them. Usually, Bing has a little more than Yahoo! and that’s okay. Not everyone can be on top.
While all the search engines generally look at some of the same criteria, there are differences.
Bing is more closely aligned with Facebook. You can push your Bing rankings higher if you have a strong Facebook network and promote your links to your Facebook friends. Google has its own social network with Google+. Yahoo!, however, seems to be more interested in domain names with age. Google likes aged domains as well, but with over 200 ranking algorithms any one ranking factor is going to have less influence on its own.
The differences between the search engines tell me that diversity is very important. You don’t want to rely on just one search engine for all of your traffic. You want to diversify your traffic sources.
This is very important. If some new website next year starts taking traffic away from Google and the search giant fades into oblivion (remember MySpace?), then you will be thankful you diversified your traffic sources. That’s why Bing and Yahoo! are still important.
It doesn’t matter what kind of content you have, if it isn’t strong content, then your visitors will leave. Your content must do three things really well.
First, it’s got to keep your site visitors informed about key information related to your niche.
Secondly, it’s got to present you as a subject matter expert without making a sales pitch.
And thirdly, it’s got to interest your audience in wanting to learn more about your business.
Content that does these three things is really strong content.
Before I went out and started producing all kinds of content that nobody is going to care about, I’d start with coming up with some content goals. Your goals should state what you want your content to accomplish. You should also discuss the types of content you want to produce and how much of each kind of content you want to produce. Finally, your content strategy should discuss specific accomplishments you want to occur by a deadline date.
Strong content is made stronger with a strong Web strategy. You have to set goals for your business and follow through. Failing to do this almost ensures that your content will be spotty and lack quality.
Before you can provide quality services for your clients, you have to attract those clients. The way you do that in the 21st century is with powerful content.
Viral content goes viral for one reason: It struck a nerve. Not with just one person but with a lot of people. You opened them up and hit them with something that made them share it with the world. It’s a good feeling when you do it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen every day.
So how often can you write viral content?
The good news is, you don’t have to write it every day. One good piece of viral content can sustain you for a long time. If you have one piece of content go viral every six months, your business will rise. But simply having content go viral isn’t going to make you money. You also need to find ways to capitalize on the traffic.
Viral content attracts eyeballs. What you do with those eyeballs after they’ve landed on your website is up to you. I recommend an opt-in form to capture leads.
You’ll know your content is working when you capture leads. Getting content to go viral is the first step. Getting people to sign up for your newsletter or e-mail marketing list is another thing. Once you get them, however, you can market to them over and over again. No need to go viral then. However, you can use your e-mail list to help your content go viral. All you have to do is share. Let the list do the rest.
I’ve been a big proponent of guest blogging and still am. However, there is a danger in doing too much. Of course, you could also have the wrong motives.
Every few years Google updates its algorithms to get rid of bad practices that are causing harm. Google Panda and Google Penguin were two such updates. One killed content farms and the other killed low-quality links from low-quality sites. Some bloggers haven’t learned their lesson.
As happens after all Google updates, Internet marketers scramble to change their tactics. In this case, more than a decade of link building tactics were turned on their head, so what did online marketers do to gain an upper hand? They turned to guest blogging – under their real names.
The reason they did this was to catch the wave of Google Authorship. It is now being reported that Google is moving toward an Authorship recognition posture where your reputation as an author is a huge link building ranking factor. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. But I’m betting that if it is true, then it won’t negate the old-fashioned link building ranking factors that Google still relies on.
So what’s the bottom line? If you are building bad links from bad sites, then your good reputation won’t matter. Make sure you diversify your authorship efforts.
