As at 5th May (next week) Google are making a mighty leap in terms of changes that are going to affect you directly. They are removing trademark bidding restrictions. What does this mean for your organisation? Click here to find out... What does this mean? Well up until now it has been possible to prevent advertisers bidding on singular trademarked terms. Advertisers choosing to bid on such terms are currently asked to remove their ads allowing the trademark owner to be the lone advertiser for their particular keyword. So for example if Pepsi had wanted to pay for a sponsored link to appear everytime someone put the phrase 'cocoa cola' into their search this was not possible. Whats changing? Essentially Google are removing this restriction allowing free bidding on all trademarked single terms. This removal of restrictions is set to be only in the UK and Ireland (not the rest of Europe) and is likely to cause havoc for those UK businesses currently benefiting from the restrictions. Why? This Google policy has been in place in the US and Canada since 2004. In Google's own statement "good proportion of users in the US and Canada have been clicking on competitor ads even when searching against trademarked terms, suggesting that they find the greater number of ads relevant and helpful when researching or making a purchase". What can you do about it? Well you could use it as an opportunity rather than a threat, you could start bidding against your competitors, and get ahead of those who are unaware of this change. Whichever way you look at this it is good news for Google because those that previously didn't feel the need to get into Pay Per Click advertising because their natural listings were so good may now feel the need to protect their patch. Why you can't ignore the Search Engines In the past it has been practically impossible for small and medium sized companies to compete with the big corporate when it comes to marketing. Corporates have deep pockets and can and do spend heavily on advertising to promote themselves. The internet has truly revolutionised the way in which organisations large and small promote themselves... click to find out how you can even the playing field. SEO matters a lot, given the intense competition among companies to get their products and services noticed by customers. There are many techniques to make Web sites more attractive and accessible to customers, and this includes Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has emerged as a great opportunity for smaller organisations. So what is it in a nutshell? SEO is all about creating content, utilising keywords and key phrases to help your website rank higher in the search result on the major Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN etc as well as making your site "popular" ie linking to your website from other popular websites. Whilst most companies will have a marketing plan outlining all their activities many overlook an SEO strategy, tending to focus on the design and interactive elements in their website, but here's something you should consider if you don't have one - SEO is one of the most effective tools in getting higher rankings in Google.