Nathan Enns, CEO of FyberSearch, has just acquired FeedPlex, a feed search engine that provides Internet users the ability to find data in XML/RSS format on the web.

What intriques me the most about this is that Nathan is only 20 years old! (Maybe still 19!)

Anthony Caslena, CEO of SquareSpace.com, is only 22 and making big waves with his publishing platform.

The internet belongs to these young netrepreneurs, and I herald their coming. Old dogs like me just rent space from them!

I was enjoying a case study on the Marketing Sherpa website and thought I'd pass these two tidbits along. . .

Comment on search engine marketing: "[M]ore qualified (and likely to convert) searchers tend to use more specific terms when searching." The more qualified the search term, the more qualified the lead.

Comment on user behavior: "[T]he more time a reader spends on the Internet in general, the less likely they are to convert to pay for content because they become convinced they can 'find it free somewhere else.'"

Regarding the latter comment, for two years I published a daily newsletter of radio show preparation materials for disc jockeys. (You know the "This Day in History", jokes, and trivia stuff that DJs use.) It was available in an annual subscription basis and delivered daily via email.

I found that very thing to be true. The more time DJs spent online themselves, the less likely they were to subscribe to my service. Conversely, the less time spent online, the more likely they were. One key is to target groups of people who spend little time online. Who are these people? According to Marketing Sherpa, CEOs comprise one such group.

Anyway, I hope you found those helpful. (BTW, the Marketing Sherpa article is only open through September 3. After that it becomes premium content.)

I checked to see what pages of my two websites Google had in its directory. The way that's done is to go to www.google.com and type in "site: then your domain name." The results will indicate which pages of your site are showing up in Google.

So, I typed in "site: www.radiantmarketinggroup.com" which is my main website. It showed that 11 pages had been indexed. Next, I typed in "site: radiantmarketing.typepad.com" which is the URL (one of them anyway) for this site. 244 pages indexed there!

Let me ask you a question? Which site do you think will get more traffic? I can answer that. This one! Why? Google loves content, and blogs are all about content. So, let me reiterate. . .if you want to drive more traffic to your website, add a blog! That's all there is too it.

In a recent post I mentioned FyberSearch, a new search engine developed by 19-year-old Nathan Enns. A couple of comments were registered on that post regarding the relevency of search returns from the engine.

Nathan himself weighed in on the matter, and I felt (particularly since I'm a fan) that his comments deserved more attention. Hence, this post. Following are Nathan's comments in their entirety. . .

Click to read more ...

There is yet another player on the search engine market vying for Google's coveted numero uno position. This one may have a shot because it's backed by none other than self-made millionaire (billionaire?) and owner of the Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban.

The new engine is called IceRocket.com and offers some features Google does not. This includes things like thumbnail photos of results homepages, a quick view feature that lets you see 40 % of the destination page as a short cut to deciding if the site is what you are looking for, and Alexa.com traffic rankings (similar to Google's PageRank) to let you know if other's are visiting the site.

The site offers both spidered search and meta-search as well. The engine has a very Google-looking interface, but so do many other engines these days.

According to information on its about us page, IceRocket is "pioneering commercial search by putting the interests and wants of consumers before advertisers." Siding with the market, not the marketers, huh. Doc Searls would be proud!

In a few days I plan to do a review of IceRocket, Amazon's new search engine A9, and FyberSearch, the engine developed by 19 year-old Nathan Enns.

Google Offering Contextual AdWords Rebate

Google has reacted to the amount of AdWords advertisers that have chosen not to do contextual advertising via Google AdWords, which then is published as AdSense ads on Google Advertising Network sites. In a letter to AdWords advertisers, Google is offering a 20-25% rebate on NEW Google Contextual AdWords advertisers who run a campaign between August 4th and September 30, 2004.

Google Faces Competition Big and Small

Google faces stiff competition from Microsoft and Yahoo!. Everyone knows that. But, did you know there is a new kid on the block? And when we say "kid" we mean it. . .19 year old Nathan Enns, inventor of FyberSearch, a search engine he built and runs from his bedroom in his mom's house, and which allegedly gives more relevant search returns than Google. They better hire this kid before David topples Goliath yet again!

Local Targeting With Pay-Per-Click Ads

Both Google and Overture now offer the ability to target very specific locations, within 20 miles from a specific point by using the physical address or longitude and latitude. This precise method of targeted PPC advertising is still quite new, but will likely shift over to the second tier engines in time if it proves to be beneficial to both advertisers and searchers. The benefit such local targeting gives localized business is the opportunity to advertise online with the chance of receiving more highly qualified business.

Ask Jeeves is the latest search engine to join the "local search" frenzy. They will be relying on InterActiveCorp's Citysearch for content beginning in September. About 10% of Ask's searches are for local information.

Yahoo! has finally rolled out a test version of its much-anticipated local search service. Yahoo Local offers Yellow Pages data, descriptions of businesses, addresses, maps and recommendations. The engine combines Yahoo! Yellow Pages, Yahoo! Maps and Yahoo! Search, and is an attempt to grab a slice of the $14 billion local advertising pie now being gobbled up by printed phone directories.

Of course, search engine leader Google has been been beta-testing local search for several months now.

What does this all mean for local businesses? That is the subject of another post I'm working on now.

A new study released by Nielsen/NetRatings and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has found higher ranked sponsored text ads have better customer brand recall.

Click to read more ...

Common Craft's Lee Lefever has written an excellent case study on why weblogs are critical marketing tools to achieve #1 rankings in Google.

Lee has certainly "crafted" his own site to achieve high rankings, even using his categories as keyword optimized phrases. Very smart marketing!

This nifty no-cost tool allows you to type one list of action words (such as buy, click, purchase) and another list of descriptions (such as your product categories) and then it combines them into one long list of keyword phrases for your AdWords bidding pleasure. Those who have set up an AdWords P-P-C account will appreciate just how useful this simple tool could be for keyword/phrase preparation on AdWords -- or with any other P-P-C program, for that matter.

I found this info in Larry Chase's Search Engine for Marketers email newsletter.