Archive for the ‘Search Engines’ Category

eMarketer projects that online advertising spending in Canada will pass $3.0 billion by 2011, roughly triple its value in 2006.  

Canada is one of the world’s most advanced online cultures. Broadband penetration is over 60%, and more than 63% of the population uses the Internet. But online advertising has been slow to take off—until now.

Get the eMarketer report here.

Just a reminder for our Canadian readers. Google Finance Canada is a great resource for finding out information about the markets and business in Canada. Google Finance Canada is a great tool for finding items such as:

• Top financial news from Canadian sources
• Search with a preference for Canadian companies
• Front-page high level economic data from the Bank of Canada
• Portfolios in Canadian currency (or the currency of your choice)
• Equity data from the Toronto Stock Exchange, TSX Venture Exchange, and Canadian mutual funds

In addition, stock quotes and charts for Canadian-listed companies are now available through the Google.com web search.

I want to talk about the Search Engine Marketing job Market in Canada because I feel I need to clarify a few things. I have seen too many companies lately who are looking to hire a Junior Search Marketing Specialist with 1-2 years of experience (or so) or freshly out of school and expect to pay them $25-35k a year. If you are one of those, I have some news for you: that person does not exist. Why? Because there are simply no school that teaches Search Marketing in Canada. Demand for serious Search Marketing Specialists at all levels keeps increasing and there is a scarcity of talent in this field, which does not yet regenerate itself. In desperation, and after they have been searching for months to fill positions, business owners are calling me and ask if I know anyone. They are telling me that their job posting on Craigslist is not generating anything. Strange isn’t it? The gap between offer and demand keeps growing and the situation is alarming.

Therefore, I think there are misconceptions that would need to be broken here. Unfortunately, and I have met a lot of people that were *somewhat* interested in Search Marketing, I don’t know anyone remotely as passionate about search marketing as I do. Hands on SEO with the motivation that leads to results can only come from 2 places (as far as I know): the owner of a company, a professional self-taught Canadian SEO such as Chris Breikss, Darcy Foster, Chris Genge, Ross Dunn, Jim Hedger, Ken Jurina, Andrew Goodman, Gord Hotckiss, Andrea Hadley and a bunch of others in their respective teams. That being said, what puzzles me here is that business owners are looking for SEO talent in the wrong places with unreasonable expectations with respect of the current job market. Proof? In all honesty, it does not seem normal to me to post an SEO job on craigslist and not receive anything back, especially when the job has been posted for months. If you are looking for a junior SEO, which seems to be the brand of choice these days, you are not the only one in that boat. A lot of business owners are going fishing for SEO pros that will work full time for us but those who have the knowledge already have their plate full with their own business.

The main issue here is that there is no Search Marketing education program nearby to fill the accrued needs. Since this is a new market, it is currently filled with disconnects and the sooner business owners will acknowledge the state of search marketing in Canada, the sooner we will be able to elaborate solutions.

Recommended Solution:
If you represent a University, a College, a School or everything in between, I seriously recommend that you start developing search marketing programs so that people in your community can learn about it. SEMPO Institute will help you. I will help you. The only program in Canada that has been brought to my attention lately was one from Fanshawe College in London (Ontario) with only one search marketing course and only as part of a full-on marketing degree. Universities want to position themselves as online & web savvy but most don’t have a search marketing program in place, which is the basis of any online promotion. They pretend but they don’t walk the talk. Maybe their Ad Agency can help. I doubt.

Other Solutions:
Take Action: Join SEMPO Canada sempo.ca and start beating the drum locally. We need help to fill the growing demand of search marketing specialists of the canadian business community.

If you don’t do any of this, you have no right to complain that you can’t find the people you need.

Canadians were obsessed by the saga of pop star Britney Spears in 2007, according to Yahoo! Canada’s list of top 10 online searches, with her name coming in second only to searches for hockey news.

Rounding out the rest of the top 10 searches were TV show American Idol, WWE (World Wrestling and Entertainment), celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, Revenue Canada, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp, Environment Canada, Paris Hilton and NASCAR.

Last year’s overall top 10 searches included the National Hockey League, FIFA World Cup, American Idol, Rock Star Supernova, WWE, virtual pet Web site Neopets, Revenue Canada, TV soap opera Days of our Lives, Environment Canada and pop star Jessica Simpson.

Source Reuters India

Microsoft Sites captured the top position in Canada with 22.2 million visitors, followed closely by Google Sites with 22 million visitors. Yahoo! Sites, with 16.8 million visitors, ranked third for the month. Social networking site Facebook.com continued to grow, gaining 4 percent to reach 14.4 million of the 23.7 million Canadians online.

“Facebook has really surged in popularity among Canadians during the past year,” continued Mr. Bernie. “The site has grown from about 1 million visitors last October to 14 million visitors this year, positioning it as the top social networking site and fourth largest property overall in Canada.”

The largest increases in the top 10 were experienced by Wikipedia and Amazon Sites, both gaining 10 percent from the previous month. Source: comScore

*Ranking based on the top 100 Canadian properties in October 2007.

** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.