The positivity and excitement surrounding Yodle acquiring ProfitFuel this week is AMAZING! There has been a rush from New York and Austin to meet in the middle — on Facebook and Twitter, of course.

The Yodle and Profit Fuel teams have joined forces and are making friends and tweeting all about our newfound love and plans for TOTAL LOCAL DOMINATION!

@ProfitFuel
ProfitFuel: I didn’t think the future of @ProfitFuelInc could be any brighter but it is! Incredibly proud to be part of the @Yodle family…TO THE TOP!!
24 May via web

@Yodle
Yodle: @ProfitFuelInc @Yodle Welcome to the family and to TOTAL LOCAL DOMINATION
24 May via web Favorite Retweet Reply
from Manhattan, NY

The team at Yodle has been so welcoming and their product is absolutely killer! It allows customers a totally integrated online marketing experience that drives sales and helps build an impactful online social network. What businesses get is a full-service and turnkey solution. For example, a customer’s dashboard clearly shows real-time progress on growth in qualified traffic and search engine results. It also displays a live feed of actions we take on the customer’s behalf to achieve these results.

Paired with ProfitFuel’s service, Outrank, customers can customize their long term marketing and advertising campaigns that are optimized to drive relevant traffic to their websites and bring in new customers. Together, ProfitFuel and Yodle optimize content so Google, Yahoo and Bing will show customers’ profiles on the front page of search results. We’re focused on the keywords that drive the largest number of relevant customers to businesses and we promote our customers’ profiles across the internet to improve organic rankings in addition to local search rankings.

This partnership is the perfect match. Yodle CEO, Court Cunningham speaks for us all when he says,

With this acquisition, our goal stays the same: to change the game for small businesses by making online advertising more accessible and accountable. What changes is the additional scale we have to accelerate the speed of product innovation to help small businesses keep pace with the fast moving online landscape.

Not only is our mission one in the same, but the two company cultures – which promote integrity and balancing a strong work ethic with having fun – are nearly identical. Our offices even look extremely similar! We’re happy to be one big, WINNING family!

The Interactive Advertising Bureau, made up of companies who control over 80% of online advertising, has released The IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report for 2010. PwC, the world’s second-largest professional services firm, prepared the report.

The report, which is available here, puts Internet advertising revenue for 2010 at $26 Billion, a new record. Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of IAB, had this to say in a recent press release:

“As the latest IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report amply demonstrates, brand advertisers and marketers have adopted the power of digital media as a central element of their campaigns…Consumers have shifted more of their time to digital media – watching television shows and movies online – and advertisers now accept this multifaceted medium as a key component for reaching their targets.”

Any business owners reading this post should pay attention closely to what I’m about to say. A whopping 46% of internet advertising revenue in 2010 came from search advertising. That’s almost $12 Billion dollars. Much (if not most) of the revenue attributed to the “search” channel comes from paid search advertisements, or PPC. With that in mind, take into account that 85% of searchers don’t click on PPC ads. Most of us, myself included, stick to the regular (organic) results that appear when we’re using search engines. Furthermore, optimizing your site to rank prominently in organic search (the art of SEO) is much less costly than buying PPC ads.

So, for pennies on the dollar, your business can use SEO to reach way more customers than your counterparts who are using PPC. If paid search advertisers are making good money as it is, just imagine how much you could grow your business using SEO. As time progresses, the market will only become more competitive, so you might want to consider making a small investment while the iron is hot. As your competitors catch on after you, their sites will be at a disadvantage–older, more established sites that have been SEO optimized (like yours) will tend to rank better.

A lot of talk has been circulating about Google’s recent algorithm changes, which have still not finished rolling out. Many businesses with prominent organic rankings have taken a dive as of late. Some data from sistrix.com showing just some of the fallout can be seen as follows:

According to the source, the “SISTRIX Visibility Index is an index value calculated from traffic on keywords, ranking and click-through rate on specific positions”. This goes to show how quickly your organic rankings can change with the seasons –typically not for the better. As more and more small businesses turn to SEO as a cost-effective, trackable advertising channel, it is important to realize the value of recurring, professional SEO maintenance.

Once a business is ready to experiment with SEO, it can play out in a few different ways. Knowing the value of search engine visibility, the DIY business owner might comb the web for instructions. Contractors, who are pretty resourceful people, are a great example of this. What he/she would find is mostly outdated information from wannabe SEO’s who took up the profession for a week after getting a life-changing “MAKE $5,000 A WEEK WORKING FROM HOME!!!” e-mail. Then there’s the 60-90 day wait in anticipation of results that never come.

Another breed of proprietor might find the DIY approach to be unreliable, and decide to enlist a professional agency. Unfortunately, this guy doesn’t do his homework before selecting an agency–one that might even be getting him great results. Before you know it, this seemingly legit company has gotten Joe Contractor’s site removed from Google altogether with spammy tactics. His business ends up taking a very real hit with no recourse against some kid in a satellite nation who never gave him legit contact info to begin with.

With a low cost, comprehensive reporting, a brick-and-mortar (US based) location and an army of dedicated account managers, you might find Outrank.com to be a good fit. We make small businesses visible on the internet, which tends to get your phone ringing. If you sign up with us and aren’t happy for any reason, there’s no monthly contract. For a free consultation, call (877) 332-4321.

Recently, Google Webspam Engineer Matt Cutts took to the company’s official blog to announce a new anti-spam initiative targeting “content farms”–low-quality, often plagiarized websites that are routinely used to help webmasters cheat their way to the top of search results pages.

Since the Caffeine update and other projects have both grown Google’s index and increased the crawling frequency of its spiders, an alarming number of questionable results have brought on loads of negative press criticizing search quality. Cutts claims that “pure webspam” has been reduced significantly enough to focus on a new target: “low-quality websites”.

Cutts goes on to say that Google has rolled out “two major algorithmic changes” focusing on these websites during 2010, and that the company’s webspam team has been strained as of late due to added obligations. However, the company’s stance is that its engine’s results are better than they ever were, and that they will continue to keep it that way.

At Outrank.com, we have always advocated an SEO strategy that is in alignment with industry best practices. As a business owner, you need to make sure your website is as effective as possible without cheating or spamming the search engines. Call us at 877-332-4321 to learn more.

Only a month ago, Outrank.com’s client base hit the 8,000 mark. We are happy to announce that, due to record growth, we now manage SEO campaigns for 9,000 small business clients. This accomplishment would not be possible without a highly effective product and our team of dedicated support professionals. The workload is so heavy that we are having to expand our physical office location to accommodate new staff.

As we steadily approach the 5-figure mark, this number is proof that SEO works. From listening to client testimonials on our main web site, you can see that everyday small business owners are consistently pleased by the return they get on a pretty small investment. What’s more, our customers lock in these benefits at low prices without having to enter into a contract. If you own a business, call Outrank.com today to have a conversation with a friendly account manager.

When it comes to small business advertising, Outrank.com is the leader in reaching potential customers on the front page of the search engines. With a low cost and measurable results, it’s no surprise that the SEO specialist now caters to over 8,000 small businesses looking to establish an online presence.

There is no secret to the company’s success, as the product sells itself. Clients are given a website and are registered on local directories in a way that helps their customers find the products and services they offer. It’s evident that people are going online to research and contact local businesses.

As demand grows, so does Outrank.com. They’re constantly adding experienced client services professionals to the team to make sure that every client has a personal point of contact, no matter what their monthly budget is. They’re also beefing up their marketing team, whose sole job is to make sure the product drives business to the customer. They have recently been named a “Top Workplace” by the Austin American-Statesman and a “Best Company to Work For” by Texas Monthly. These honors reflect their dedication to their employees and customers alike.

To see what all the buzz is about, call Outrank.com at (877) 332-4321.

Outrank.com is growing faster than ever. The search engine optimization experts at Outrank now work with over 6000 small, local businesses to improve their visibility online. When it comes to achieving front page placement on the major search engines, small business owners know they can trust Outrank – success is sure to follow.

Outrank.com’s service delivers a high amount of value at a price that any business can afford. When business owners start to see the phone ring, it’s easy to justify the low monthly cost of Outrank.com.

The Austin-based company’s “Work for Free Guarantee” and month-to-month agreement are also reasons for its success, as customers don’t have to worry about being locked into a contract.

The client services department at Outrank.com is growing fast this year to keep up with the firm’s expanding client base. Search engines are now the go-to place for people to research local businesses, and Outrank.com continues to build revenue-generating websites and achieve front page ranking for thousands of clients to reach these prospective customers.