Last week Google launched its new online storage and sharing program, Google Drive. Gmail users can now install a piece of free software on any device running Windows, Mac OS X, Android and (soon) iOS. That device will then get a special Google Drive folder that synchronizes automatically with an online mirror.

knockoff or knockout?

Dropbox has been around for quite a while and Microsoft recently scaled up its long-neglected SkyDrive to include additional payment tiers and support mobile devices. Google Drive might seem late in the game, but as usual the web giant is working hard to stand out from the rest of the pack.

Google Drive isn’t just a Dropbox counterfeit, it’s new face of Google Docs. In an effort to pull users away from Microsoft towards the web -based office software, Google is hoping that new users for Google Drive will stick around and use Google Docs.  Documents created through Docs won’t count towards your Drive storage quota, but all uploaded files are fair game for Google’s data-extraction technology.

Let’s take a look at what you get, using information provided by Geek.com. New users receive 5GB of free storage on Google Drive, compared to 2GB for Dropbox and a whopping 7GB from SkyDrive. Google drive is also right in the middle in regards to pricing for additional storage, however, upgrading to any paid account will reward you with extra Gmail storage.

paradigm shift

It’s a pretty big swing for Google to move from advertising to paid subscriptions. So, does this represent a fundamental change in how Google creates revenue, or just a foray into unfamiliar territory to head off efforts by Microsoft? Either way, users have nothing to lose at the moment, and a lot to gain. Both Google and Microsoft have drastically undercut the prices that Dropbox offers for additional storage. My hope is that with stiff competition between multiple big players, prices will fall and features skyrocket. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?!

Which to choose?

Stephen Shankland of cnet.com has the best answer: “Heck, use ‘em all!” With a combined free storage quota of over 10GB and a little organization on the part of the user, there doesn’t have to be any reason to choose just one.

You don’t need your own YouTube Channel to leverage online video and extend your digital marketing reach (though it wouldn’t hurt). Incorporating video on to your website is a relatively simple way to communicate quickly and clearly, engage your users, and improve your online presence and search engine rankings. Before dusting off your old home movies, here are three key points to remember:

Audience First

As with all marketing strategies, you must first decide who you are targeting before you develop your message. Then, make sure that your video is created with them in mind, particularly in terms of language and style. Your primary audience will play an important role in the overall reach of your video, so communicate with them in a way they will understand. This will increase the chances of your video achieving wider popularity. It may be helpful to investigate what styles of video are popular among your niche.

Short, Sweet, and Shareable

In a perfect world, your video should be between one to two minutes long. Realistically, anything less than five is alright, as long as it entertaining or informative – better yet, both! Though video can help you to explain complex issues, it’s best to keep things simple. Each video should have one clear message to get across. Following these steps will make it more likely for your users to share or link to your video on their social media.

Leave it to the professionals

You likely wouldn’t ask your middle-school-aged nephew to write a press release for your business, so why would you treat video production this way? Find a reputable videographer and editor to help you produce a high quality video; it is more affordable than you might think. Also consider investing in a professional writer to aid with the content. Your investment will produce big returns in the credibility and ultimately shareability of your video.

Incorporating video on your website is the ideal way to show your company’s personality and connect with your customers, especially those remote from you.  According to eMarketer’s estimates “53.5% of the total population and 70.8% of internet users will watch online video in 2012.”  That’s a lot of exposure. When done correctly, a great online video will have an exponential impact on your online visibility and brand recognition.

Your web presence is more precarious than you might think. If you’re not on page one of the search results, your chances of being found by your target audience diminishes rapidly. Even from the top of page one to the bottom you start slipping out of sight.

You need to be on page one!

SEO is all about harvesting and analyzing data. The nuts and bolts of making changes to your website that get you to the top of the search results are child’s play next to the problem of gathering the right data to know which changes to make.

As Avinash Kaushik, the web analyst, reminds us constantly, our problem is not that we don’t have enough data or intelligence to do business—we have TOO MUCH!

What is actionable intelligence?

The road sign above is a simplified analog to what SEO specialists confront every day with data. The sign is shouting useless information at the reader and the most important data might get you killed if you ignore it.

Same with SEO. If you are gathering and acting on useless information to optimize your website, you could get killed in the search rankings.

So how do you get the right intelligence?

Out of the mountains of data that can be gathered about your website and that of your competitors, you must be able to focus on actionable intelligence: that data which points directly to the actions you must take to move your rankings higher.

The sign of the times in SEO points to automation. It’s no longer possible to do effective data mining and analysis by manual means. There is too much data and too little time.

SEO Automation

Manual data mining for SEO involves the use of a dozen tools or more that are spread all over the web. They aren’t correlated with each other and they don’t, by themselves, produce actionable intelligence. That has always been the province of the specialist after the data has been gathered.

Automation let’s us design and test specific data gathering and parsing functions that makes it easier for a specialist to see the actionable intelligence and…well…act on it.

This doesn’t just speed up the process for us, the SEO specialists. It means we can gather and act on more specific information that produces results more quickly. Over time, we can also be more specific about what content to add to the website and which new keywords to target.

Gravitate SEO takes it to the streets

To save our sanity and stay current with the industry, Gravitate SEO is developing its own proprietary tools for data mining, analysis, and client reporting. It’s already making a huge difference in how we approach the work on our own website. Like many businesses, taking care of clients means we have at times ignored this website. Now we’re treating this site like any client site and using it as a test case to develop our new automated toolbox.

In the coming days and weeks, we’ll be reporting on our progress back to the top of the rankings, where we’ve been for years. We’ll also be offering tips and tricks that you can consider for your own business or non-profit website. Subscribe to our RSS feed and come along for the ride. We’ll make sure to warn you of any bridges that are out.