Welcome to the ineedhits Search Engine Marketing blog, where we share the latest search engine and online marketing news, releases, industry trends and great DIY tips and advise.

Last week I explained how to Monitor, Listen & Respond to social media comments as part of my overview of the Media140 conference. This week, we will look at how social media sites can be used as an effective crisis management tool.
The rise of social media sites has given customers a new avenue to talk about your company and in turn a new way for you to…

Just when you thought Google couldn’t possibly find a new avenue for their search engine, along comes Google TV.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is testing a new television programming search service in conjunction with Dish Network.
Details on the project are a little sketchy so far as Google has not officially announced anything. However we do know that the service is currently in a limited…

Many webmasters focus a majority of their time on building new links to their site with a variety of link building methods. While this is certainly an important part of SEO, it’s also beneficial to review your existing links to make sure you’re getting the most out of them.
Here’s a few simple ways to improve the SEO benefit of your existing link partners.
1. Optimize your anchor text
Anchor…

Google has announced they are dumping their SearchWiki feature and replacing it with a new feature called ‘Starred Results’. Starred results are basically a stripped down version of SearchWiki, which will let users bookmark specific search results so that they appear at the top of the page for related searches.
SearchWiki was Google’s first attempt at offering personalized search results by allowing users to re-order organic results, remove…
Google’s Webmaster Tools team have again been busy working on new enhancements to the Webmaster Center – with 2 new additions to the Lab.
Today, the team announced the release of the following into the Webmaster Labs area:
The Webmaster Tools Lab is where the team release their improvements and functionality for public testing before releasing them properly into the Webmaster…
Last year, Google released a new search function which allows users to sift through global public data.
Now before any of you get concerned with Privacy – this isn’t your personal stats and online data – it’s more generic public information. Here’s an excerpt from the release post last year.
“We just launched a new search feature that makes it easy to find and compare public data. So for…
Location-based advertising is not a new concept. Companies such as AdMob have being doing it for while now, but it seem that Google had the idea first.
News has surfaced that Google filed a US patent nearly 7 years ago for “determining and/or using location information in an ad system.”
Venturebeat discovered the patent as it was finally granted last week. Here is an extract from the patent:
“The usefulness,…

Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Bebo, FriendFeed, Digg, YouTube, MySpace… with new social media sites popping up almost daily, it can seem quite daunting as to how your business can use them effectively.
This is where the highly anticipated Media140 conference comes into play. The Perth leg of the event was held last week and I was lucky enough to score myself a ticket.
For those readers who are unaware…

According to posts on webpronews and search engine land, Google has expanded testing for their new search results page, which we first discussed back in November last year. As we mentioned last year, the changes include a search options panel on the left hand side which helps navigate between different types of searches.
Search Engine Land has a great image which shows the differences between the original test…

As the economic downturn continues to impact marketing budgets, more small businesses have turned to alternative marketing methods such as embracing social media.
According to results from the small business success index, levels of social media adoption increased from 12 percent to 24 percent over the past 12 months.
The research identified that around one in five small businesses owners are using social media in their business, which…