According to direct marketing intelligence firm Mintel Comperemedia, direct mail volume is up 16% in Q1 2010.  Obviously direct mail is still working for a lot of businesses!

Amazingly, insurance-related mailings account for 43% of all direct mail volume!

Mike

But how can you do that? Google, Bing and Yahoo! all keep their search algorithms under wraps, so it’s tough to know exactly what sites will rise to the top. (Otherwise, people would be madly-rushing to game the system, which would demolish the value of the search engines for their users.)

Google in particular is known for its secrecy regarding the way its search engine returns relevant results. But sometimes we get a glimpse of the way things work ‘under the hood.’

In a recent Wired Magazine article, Steven Levy discusses some of the in’s and out’s of Google’s algorithm, as well as its infrastructure and development process. While it won’t give you any concrete info on how to get your listings to the top, it’s a fascinating article (albeit a long one) that any person concerned with search would do well to read.

After reading it, you’ll definitely look at search differently.

- Kipp

**UPDATE – In an ironic twist since this article was published, Mike Siwek (referenced in the article) has lost his #1 ranking in Google. Wordstream reports on the situation in How Wired Jacked Mike Siwek’s #1 Google Ranking.

Check out this table that shows statistical evidence of the power of getting ranked higher in Google:

Wow! It’s amazing to see how much traffic is skewed towards the top spots. Clearly the effort required to get ranked higher in Google is worth it towards the top!

Mike