The Importance of SEO
The SEO team at Dental Design are constantly reviewing your website to ensure a
good flow of traffic to your website. In order to reassure you that you are in good
hands the following link leads to a recent industry related website article on How to
Pick an SEO firm http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Search-Engines/How-toPick-an-SEO-Firm.html
The following extract summarises the importance of SEO work:
" Is monthly maintenance necessary?
Any SEO Firm that knows what they are talking about should tell you that
maintenance and monitoring of rankings is required to ensure you don't start losing
rankings. If they tell you that you will lose rankings as soon as you leave them, they
are lying-or more accurately they are just guessing. They don't really know for sure.
However experience shows us that rankings do tend to maintain until the next major
algorithm shift and then if no one is maintaining them for you, they may begin to
drop. SEO is not the kind of thing you do once and then you are done. To maintain
and hopefully even increase your rankings, you need to have someone continually
working on your behalf. Alternatively, you could learn to handle some of the
maintenance items yourself. But the key is to realize that someone needs to monitor
your rankings and work on your in order to hold on to your top rankings and grow
them. Don't forget the engines themselves reported that approximately 25% of
searches each month are never before seen phrases. So, at the very least you'll want to
monitor what new phrases are popping up and make sure you are getting exposure for
them. "
Small businesses need the internet
Frank Reed had an interesting post on his Frank Thinking
blog, lamenting how small businesses seem to avoid search marketing. They spend
their money on Yellow Pages ads and other older forms of marketing that might not
bring the best return on their investment. So, with the U.S. economy focusing every
small business on making more from less, why is it that Internet marketing, and
search marketing in particular, is so scary? What can we do to help small businesses
take advantage of the Internet?
I am not a researcher (and I don't even play one on TV), but from talking to hundreds
of small business owners over the years, I have some theories:

The Internet is still too hard. Most small business owners are not comfortable
with technology, because it still requires too much expertise to operate,
sucking up time and money they don't have. Time will solve this, because
younger owners have more technology experience and because technology


does get easier each year (I swear). We should expect that business owners
that don't use computers will be suspicious of Internet marketing. But most
small business owners have at least made their peace with computers, so what
else is holding them back?
Internet marketing is scary. No matter what you try, there's too much to know
to avoid looking like a fool or even breaking the law. Yellow Pages ads, trade
show brochures, weekly circulars, and other tried and true small business
marketing programs are at least understood. Sure, you could screw something
up, but it's hard. But with search marketing, you can blow money on paid
search and get no sales. You can send out e-mails the wrong way and run afoul
of the CAN-SPAM act. You can breach some Internet etiquette and be a
laughing stock. No, for some, it's just too dangerous.
Inertia. I honestly think this is the big one. Small business owners are the
busiest people I know. They spend so much time just executing what they
already know how to do that they are ill-equipped to spend any time thinking
about something new.
So what can we do?
For one thing, we need to realize that small business owners couldn't care less about
being experts in Internet marketing. They don't care what the trends are. They don't
care what's hot. Mostly, they care about how they can learn as little as possible and be
effective. And honestly, that's what all of us should be concerned about. If we can't
explain the value of Internet marketing in terms small business owners can
understand, they should ignore us.
But we also need to make Internet marketing easier—especially search marketing,
which is so basic to any business. Why is it that the easy-to-use facilities that create
Web sites don't help with organic search marketing? Or help business owners analyze
the metrics that matter?
They don't. You still need to find your own Web page builder, do your own
optimization, learn what JavaScript means so you can get metrics, and a dozen other
tasks that we experts take for granted. But each one can baffle a perfectly intelligent
small business owner.
It's time that we added the automatic transmission for Internet marketing. Do any of
my readers know any examples of truly easy-to-use tools that help businesses sell, not
just create a Web site?
Search site aims to rival Google
Former workers at the web giant Google have
launched a rival search engine.
Called Cuil, from the Gaelic for knowledge and
hazel, its founders claim it does a better and more
comprehensive job of indexing information
online.
The technology it uses to index the web can
understand the context surrounding each page and The Cuil homepage is even more
the concepts driving search requests, say the
sparse than Google's
founders.
But analysts believe the new search engine, like many others, will struggle to match
and defeat Google.
Hard fight
Cuil, pronounced "cool", says it uses more than 120 billion webpages to build up its
index of the information it finds on the web.
It claims this is more than Google uses though the search giant has stopped reporting
how much it indexes. Without revealing numbers Google claimed its index was still
bigger.
Cuil claims that its technology moves away from
The founders of Cuill are
the methods that have driven Google's success.
former Google engineers and
they obviously have a fiercely
Instead of just looking at the number and quality competitive attitude to their
of links to and from a webpage as Google's
former mother-ship
technology does, Cuil attempts to understand
Rory Cellan-Jones
more about the information on a page and the
terms people use to search. Results are displayed BBC technology correspondent
in a magazine format rather than a list.
Read Dot.life blog
The company is also trying to set itself apart from Google by not retaining any
information about what people search for.
Cuil founders, Anna Patterson, Russell Power and Louis Monier are former Google
staffers. The other founder Tom Patterson worked for IBM and others on search and
storage technologies.
By declaring its aim of taking on Google, Cuil joins a long list of others that have
tried and largely failed to dent the search giant's market share. Other contenders
include Teoma, Vivisimo, Snap, Mahalo and Powerset.
"The time may be right for a challenger," said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of
Search Engine Land. "Competing with Google is still a very daunting task, as
Microsoft will tell you."
Google tops superbrand list
Carmaker, broadcasting corporation, and Microsoft trail
This week is off to a pretty ideal start for Google. Aside from the odds of Microsoft and Yahoo ganging up on it
now seeming miniscule, the search giant has been named the UK's best "superbrand."
Stephen Cheliotis
Around 2,200 consumers and an expert council voted Google into first place. Microsoft scored second, which
both gives Google "I beat you" bragging rights and throws the Superbrand voting results into question. But the
other brands in the top five - Mercedez-Benz, the BBC, British Airways - are more natural fits.
Stephen Cheliotis, the chairman of the Superbrands Council, explained to the BBC, "The results are . . . a further
sign that Google is continuing its dominance in the UK. It is clear that Google is the brand that people value at
work and in their personal lives."
BMW, Nike and Sony squeezed into the top ten, with dear old Guinness grabbing spot number twenty-three.
Yahoo was down in 75th place, YouTube appeared as superbrand number 239, and none of the other companies
we typically cover (or randomly mention) appeared among the top 250 results.
Monday morning or not, we're betting Larry, Sergey, and Eric are in pretty good moods at the moment.
Google is top brand - (The Sun, 22nd July 2008)
Google is Britains favourite brand, according to a new survey. The search engine
came in just ahead of last years winner, Microsoft.
Foods and supermarkets were the big losers. Coca-Cola - second fave last year fell to
No 14, and Cadbury from 10th spot to 19th.
Asda dropped 253 places, Tesco 230 and Sainsbury's 194 slots.
Stephen Cheliotis of pollsters the Superbrands Council said: "Everyday staples seem
further than ever from the affections of the British people."
Top 10 brands
1. Google
2. Microsoft
3. Mercedes-Benz
4. BBC
5. British Airways
6. Royal Doulton
7. BMW
8. Bosch
9. Nike
10. Sony
Thank you from Amy for money raised?
Singing dentist gets £1m contract
An NHS dentist has signed a £1m record deal after stunning executives with his
operatic interpretations of pop songs.
Andrew Bain had spent a decade perfecting patients' smiles when he decided to make
a last-ditch attempt for a career in music.
The 34-year-old tenor recorded a cover of Prince's Purple Rain in his bedroom and
sent it to major music companies, reports the Daily Mail.
Simon Cowell's record company Sony BMG offered him a contract so quickly he still
has to carry out dentist appointments for the next three months.
"Not only have I finally got a record deal, but they understand my eclectic taste in
music. Who needs yet another version of Nessun Dorma?
"Opera really was the pop music of its day, so I feel that mixing this style with the
pop songs of today is a natural progression despite what the critics might say," he
said.
Mr Bain has been offered a four-album deal and has started recording pop covers of
bands Snow Patrol, Abba and The Smiths for release in September.
Due to his day job he can only practise for an hour or two a day and have lessons once
a fortnight.
Lancaster-born Mr Bain, who lives in Stockwell, South London, said: "I try and sing
every day. Fortunately I have thick walls and understanding neighbours.
"I'm very grateful for my dentistry career. I don't think I'll leave it entirely behind
although in what form that takes is hard to say. My friends will still be wanting free
check-ups."