Inc. Magazine recently ranked Titan Growth® No. 985 on its fourth annual Inc. 5000, an elite ranking of the nation’s 5000 fastest-growing private companies. This year’s list recipients were chosen based on the percentage of their annual revenue growth from 2006-2009 and were all privately-held, independent U.S. businesses as of December 31, 2009. According to Inc. president Bob LaPointe, “The 2010 Inc. 5000 showcases a particularly hardy group of entrepreneurs.”

The past decade, which has seen national tragedy, two wars, and a global financial breakdown, has paved the way for entrepreneurs to rise in new and innovative industries. It is probably no coincidence that 20 percent of Inc 500’s top companies are either marketers or defense contractors, who either found a way to promote other companies in a smarter fashion or provide equipment and intelligence to our overburdened military.

Titan Growth® falls into the ranks of the marketers in the top 5000 list, and in fact, Titan Growth® is rated in the top 100 on Inc.’s list of top marketing agencies. The company has worked hard to become a prominent Search Engine Marketing (SEM) firm since its inception in 2004, building on the principle that the internet is the future of marketing. Internet marketing allows companies to advertise their business online rather than by using traditional marketing techniques, such as print ads, radio, and television. Titan Growth®’s primary focus is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is a strategy to help rank companies’ websites at the top of the search engine results by making websites more readable to search engine spiders, continually building link architecture, and staying on top of search engine updates so websites do not lose rankings. Titan Growth® also offers Pay Per Click management (PPC) and various types of consulting where needed. Since internet marketing is trackable, companies are able to confidently focus their marketing budget on a type of marketing that is typically much more cost-effective than traditional advertising. For that reason, companies who use SEO agencies, like Titan Growth®, see a significant increase in revenue and exposure, even in a slow economy.

Titan is also rated No. 23 for San Diego companies overall, proving it has what it takes to compete and thrive in a region where most businesses have been hard-hit by the housing crisis. With a staff of talented professionals, Titan Growth® is poised to become a leader in the future of internet marketing, building upon years of testing, creativity, client testimonials, and personal attention for all clients. According to Titan Growth® founder and president, Danny Shepherd, “We are very thankful to our clients for making this milestone possible and we can’t wait to see where the next few years take us.”

Contributed by Amanda Finch, VP Operations

Reasons IE10 Will Not Support Plug-Ins

Microsoft’s soon-to-be-released Windows 8 has had many technophiles buzzing with the latest gossip of geekdom: Window 8’s Metro version of Internet Explorer 10, which is optimized for tablets, will not allow plug-ins such as Adobe Flash, which gives SEO agencies and their clients yet another reason to be wary of Flash. According to Internet Explorer (IE) team lead, Dean Hachamovitch, plug-ins would detract from the tablet user experience, and the lack of plug-ins for tablets “improves battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers.”

This move comes after a long period of testing and researching to determine just what the best experience for tablet users would be. After examining 97,000 of the world’s top websites, the IE team concluded the majority of the sites using Flash also include an HTML5 option as well, and for the sites you absolutely must see in Flash, tablet users can click the “Use Desktop View” button from the Metro style app to view sites requiring Microsoft’s legacy ActiveX controls. When all else fails, tablet users can always download a plug-in friendly browser.

Whatever the reason, this switch presents a challenge to many companies with Flash sites. As search behavior progresses further in the direction of mobile, we are likely to see technology changing just as rapidly, and a Flash-free user experience just may be part of the deal. If you are currently using a Flash website, then you may already be aware of the difficulties search engines have had in the past with indexing your site’s information. This latest plug-in free switch may be good motivation for Flash sites to make a switch of their own. If you are considering how to optimize your website, or how to convert to HTML, contact an SEO agency today to find out how your business can be ready for the next stage in search.

If you’ve just gotten back into the swing of things after the Thanksgiving week, you may just now be noticing some changes and improvements in your Microsoft AdCenter account. Microsoft (aka Bing) has been working to better their user interface (UI) and operability during the past few months, and it seems some of the most significant changes have arrived just in time for you to make your Bing holiday campaign better than ever.

Since the Yahoo!-Bing Search Alliance took over last year, advertisers have been watching and waiting for the promised, albeit only hinted at, technological improvements stemming from the merged search engines. It seems Bing has finally begun to implement some of those advancements to try to make the AdCenter UI more intuitive and as user-friendly as Google’s Adwords interface.

One of the most noticeable differences is the addition of the multi-metric trend graphs appearing on the Campaigns tab. You have the option to choose up to 5 different metrics to display at once, simplifying your overview at a glance. As a side note, we’ve experienced some problems seeing these graphs, so we recommend updating your browser.

Another feature account managers will love is the ability to edit certain Campaign, Adgroup, Ad and Keyword settings directly on the overview page, such as daily budget, status, match type, and CPC. Managers will also enjoy the ability to access bulk management tools and a real-time preview while creating new campaigns and ads. These more in-depth tools allow users to add negative keywords in a more precise way, similar to how Google Adwords operates. Bing also added the Share of Voice function so users can Quantify missed impressions easily, an Opportunities tab for missed traffic and bid suggestions, and improvements to their Change History and Quality Score reporting functions.

Whether you are an experienced Pay-Per-Click (PPC) manager, or a small business owner just trying out a new advertising method for the holidays, you will enjoy many of these recent improvements. If you have any questions about how to use these features, or how to start a PPC account, contact your SEO agency today.

Contributed by Amanda Finch, VP Operations