Last Friday, after years of frustration with Sprint, and seeing the busted Palm Pre in action, I decided to give the iPhone a try. I had many concerns about switching… mostly because of AT&T network but I had some other valid concerns as well. To refer to my phone as a phone is kind of silly. I actually talk on the device probably less then 5% of the time. I rarely take phone calls and even more rarely make them. I use a service called phonetag to transcribe all voice mails to email and send them to me which I then reply in email. With my Sprint phones over the years I have used my…
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Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills
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Switching To the iPhone – 2 Weeks Later
2 Jul 2009 | 3:54 am -
How To Avoid Obvious Failure As An Affiliate
1 Jul 2009 | 3:36 amThis is a guest post by Dennis Yu, CEO of BlitzLocal.com, a software company that does local lead gen for professional firms and retail outlets. Look at the top affiliates– the ones who are actually making money versus the pretenders . What’s the difference between them? You’ll notice that they all work ultra hard, are ultra networked, and are ultra knowledgeable. The catch-22 is that if you’re a one man show, how can you possibly put in enough time to work, meet people, and learn at the same time? Let’s look at how people fail at this: Ultra networkers: You know… -
What I Dont Understand About Twitter Followers
30 Jun 2009 | 4:30 amHere is the thing I don’t get about twitter. People follow people they are interested in and want to know what they are doing (unless I am missing something). What I don’t get is why people follow me, but then bitch about what I say… repeatedly…. and often times will say “Who gives a shit” in response to my tweets. Well I guess you do jackass or you would not follow me. Here is a good example… Last Friday I went with my wife and daughter (it was my daughters birthday) and she REALLY wanted me to get my toenails painted. So I put up a twitpic of it:… -
Winning The Web Announces ‘Winners Circle’
29 Jun 2009 | 8:00 amGyutae Park of Winning the Web has just launched a new Internet marketing training program today called Winners Circle. And at first glance, I think it is pretty awesome. Winners Circle is a members-only site with exclusive Internet marketing case studies, interviews, and community. Currently, there is one case study up and a new one is released each week. There are also a few interviews with top Internet marketers (released bi-weekly), a special bonus report called “4 Steps to Finding the Perfect Niche for Your Online Business”, and a forum which gives you direct access… -
Feedburner Drops Aweber From RSS Counts?? Or Not??
29 Jun 2009 | 3:34 amMid last week a lot of blog owners saw their RSS subscribers count drastically decrease. I had seen this before but it never lasted more then a day (that i saw). I was surprised to see the issue still going on several days later as it started to pop up on forums, blogs, and on some Google Groups that Feedburner was no longer showing your Aweber Blog Broadcast Subscribers. I talked to a friend who works at Feedburner and he said he was not sure the exact reason they stopped showing but that Feedburner in general was cleaning up questionable services that might not be reporting properly. I…
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Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim
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Google Added 25% to Chinese Ad Revenue
3 Jul 2009 | 11:33 amAfter their recent skirmish with the Chinese government over Internet porn, Google China is back online. And they’re already optimistic: apparently they’re poised to announce a Q2 revenue increase in China of 25% over the previous quarter. (And in this economy, that’s not just great; that’s phenomenal!) Brand Republic reports that Google China will also see operating revenue increases of 45% to 50% over the second quarter of last year. For owning only 30% of the Chinese search market, that seems pretty impressive. And the revenue boost from April, May and June of this… -
Search Ads Less Helpful than TV, Newspaper
3 Jul 2009 | 9:33 amThe results of a new poll from Harris Interactive indicate that Internet advertising isn’t as effective as search engine marketers would like to think. When asked what medium’s ads were most helpful in making purchase decisions, the 2500+ American respondents indicated that first television, then newspapers, then search engine ads. Internet banner ads fared even worse: 37% said television ads were most helpful in purchase decisions 18% said newspaper ads 14% said search engine ads 3% said radio ads 1% said Internet banner ads Perhaps most revealing, however, is the math. Those… -
Google AdWords & Ad Planner Get the Mary Kay Treatment
3 Jul 2009 | 6:57 amIn addition to some minor changes with the blog search interface, Google has been busy updating both the Google Ad Planner and Adwords interfaces. The AdWords updates are in response to feedback Google has received since it introduced a new look last month. About the only thing that appears to be truly an "update" is a new search feature for finding your keywords. Searching for keywords We heard many of you are looking for quick ways to search for keywords, ad text, or campaign names within your account. In previous posts, we talked about how you can use filtering to focus on the… -
Google Blog Search, Now With Added Mediocrity
3 Jul 2009 | 6:30 amGoogle has updated the homepage to Google Blog Search, but it seems more like a knee jerk reaction to other web sites, than true innovation. Take for example the new “Hot queries” section. It highlights the search terms currently most active on Google Blog Search. It sounds like a good idea, but ends up looking like nothing but a rip-off of Twitter’s “Trending Topics.” Google couldn’t even be bothered to match those hot queries to the topic you’re viewing. Switch to technology news, and you still see “tour de france” and English soccer… -
Google Book Settlement Officially on DOJ Radar
3 Jul 2009 | 5:55 amEarlier in June we talked about how the Google book settlement reached with Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers was drawing the attention of the Department of Justice. The settlement between these two parties was reached in October 2008. There isn’t even final approval on the agreement and the fairness hearing to determine that approval is still months away. Under the settlement, Google’s plan to make available millions of titles copied from various public sources can move forward. Google would have the right to display the books online and to profit from them by…
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Search Engine Marketing Gurus
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Online Marketing Tips Video: Online Reputation Management
This week's online marketing tips video is all about online reputation management in social media and search marketing. It's a little different look beyond just monitoring with Google alerts and buzz monitoring tools (the first tip). Buy building relationships and loosing your grip, these tips can also help you with your reputation online. Reputation Management Online Tips Video Transcript after the jump.... Reputation Management Tips Video Transcript Hi and welcome back to Tuesday's Tips in online marketing. I'm Li Evans of Search Marketing Gurus and Serengeti Communications.This… -
Online Marketing Tips Video: Being Social in Social Media
This week's Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing video is all about how to be social in social media, especially if you are a company. These days it takes a lot more than just having a Twitter account or a Facebook page to be successful in social media! In this short educational video, there's 3 quick tips that companies can use to integrate into their social media strategies and be more social with a lot more success. Full Being Social in Social Media Video Transcript after the jump ... Being Social in Social Media Video Transcript Hi and welcome back to Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing. I'm… -
Online Marketing Tips Video: Community Building
Finally I'm back with our Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing!Today I decided to focus on Community Building in Social Media. It's under 3 minutes, quick and to the point about 3 tips for helping to build the community around your blog, forum, or even networking group like those on Facebook or LinkedIn. Enjoy! Full Community Building Tips Video transcript after the jump .... Community Building Tips Video Transcript Hi and welcome back to Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing. I'm Li Evans of Search Marketing Gurus. I'm back today with three tips in community building. And this is… -
How to Get Over the Ouch Syndrome in Blogging
Let's face it, no one likes to hear "bad" things about themselves. It's never more true when you have a corporate PR or Marketing department who's only job is to "spin". But negative thoughts, comments and situations are a given whenever a company enters into the public spectrum. There is always a detractor somewhere. This is why companies who are entering into the social media space really need to be prepared to accept the love as well as the "non-love" with their brand, products or services.So with a little inspiration from the group on Sunday night's #blogchat group and from Debra… -
A Pizza Hut PR Stunt Or a Social Media Blunder Waiting to Happen?
To kick off the work week Twitter was all abuzz with news that Pizza Hut wanted to hire a summer intern to man their Twitter account. The story even made the New York Times. I really don't know what made me roll my eyes more, that the NY Times gave this obvious PR Stunt credibility or that the Vice President for marketing communications at Pizza Hut (Bob Kraut), actually stated "The successful applicant will speak fluent OMG and LOL and correctly use the terms DM (direct message), RT (retweet) and # (hashtag)." to make himself sound cool and hip. For the record, if you tweeted DM it wouldn't…
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Small Business Search Marketing
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Yahoo Answers: No Links for New Folks
1 Jul 2009 | 7:57 pmIf you’re a small business owner that’s following my advice (or anyone’s) about marketing on Yahoo Answers, things just got a little more difficult today. Yahoo says that Level 1 users will no longer be able to include active links in their answers. You can still include a URL, but it won’t appear as an active link. As the Yahoo blog post says, this is a “small but significant” change. What’s it mean? If you’re playing by the rules and providing helpful answers to the community, not spamming, just keep doing what you’ve been doing. It just… -
June ‘09: Best Search/Marketing Posts
1 Jul 2009 | 7:44 pmHere’s my roundup of the best search/marketing posts I found and read during June. If you’re new to this blog, this is a monthly feature that began way back in 2007. You can find earlier “Best Of”s for each month in the archives: 2008 Best Posts and 2007 Best Posts. I never include my own posts in these end-of-month recaps. Small Business Don Campbell/Expand2Web: Google Voice – An Opportunity for Small Business Owners Janet Meiners Thaeler/Small Biz Trends: Practices of Top SEO Companies for Small Businesses David Mihm/SEL: Do-It-Yourself SEO Advice For SMBs Local… -
Boston Restaurants (heart) Twitter
29 Jun 2009 | 8:31 pmToday’s Boston Globe has a story about the growing number of local restaurants using Twitter, including one that started tweeting several months before the restaurant opened … and had a full house when it finally did. A couple choice parts: What can you do with 140 characters or less, the length of each tweet? A lot, restaurants are discovering – everything from posting daily specials to luring followers with offers of free appetizers to offering a glimpse of kitchen life. It’s all good for business. and One reason for Twitter’s popularity is that it’s both… -
Creative Small Business Marketing, Episode 4
24 Jun 2009 | 5:39 amHow do you get a customer to trust you? How do you prove that not only can you do the job for her, but you’ve already done the job for others like her? And you’ve already done it dozens of times in her city/town/neighborhood? I think something like this answers those questions and more: That screenshot is from a map that’s embedded on Avante Gardens’ web site, and each marker indicates a location where they’ve handled flowers for weddings and other special events. Click on any marker and you’ll get more information about the special event, as well as photos… -
Small Business SEO: Costs, Expectations & Realities
23 Jun 2009 | 5:18 amJanet Meiners wrote a good article Monday on Small Biz Trends: Practices of Top SEO Companies for Small Businesses. It’s designed to help small business owners understand the basic/minimum services that an SEO company/consultant should be providing. But what about the cost of small business SEO? What should a small business expect to pay when hiring an SEO consultant? In the comments on that Small Biz Trends article, a man named Jeff says this about the cost of SEO services: “…many companies that offer SEO services charge an arm and a leg, usually monthly (anywhere from…
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Yoast
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Playing around with VPS.net
3 Jul 2009 | 1:00 amSo the guys who run WestHost and provide me with my awesome WordPress hosting, are a sister company of the guys that run VPS.net, and they recently gave me a VPS to play around with a bit. I kinda liked how easy it was to get a VPS up and running with a TurnKey Linux / WordPress image on it, the only issue was it was version 2.5 and needed updating. Though they told me that would be changed pretty soon (meaning the image will support a higher WP version), I made a quick video on how to do all this: Click here to view the embedded video. I have to say it was a pretty nice experience, if you're… -
On the GPL, Themes, Plugins & Free.
2 Jul 2009 | 12:23 pmSo, we've finally got an official word on this, the one sentence summary by Matt reads: PHP in WordPress themes must be GPL, artwork and CSS may be but are not required. Ok, so that's the final truth, because the Software Freedom Law Center (who are of course absolutely NOT partial in this, even though they're called the "Software Freedom Law Center") said so. Nice. Really nice actually as all I've done and released for WordPress, ever, has always been GPL, and I chose to work with Brian because histhemes were GPL and the others were not (at the time). You'd think I'd be happy, and I am, sort… -
Yet Another WordPress Podcast
1 Jul 2009 | 1:58 pmI've just agreed with my buddy Daron Babin of WebmasterRadio.FM to be the host for a weekly WordPress podcast, no names or time slots decided yet but I'm so excited about the news that I wanted to share it with you all! All your suggestions for names, topics and guests are welcome in the comments! This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites. A good blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Use WestHost, and you'll never have issues again! Yet Another WordPress Podcast -
New Plugin: RSS Shortcode
1 Jul 2009 | 2:21 amYesterday, while working on a project for Springer Uitgeverij, I was amazed to find out there is no simple RSS Shortcode plugin, that simply allows you to do this: [rss feed="http://yoast.com/feed/" num="10" excerpt="false"/] And then that would show the feed you'd specified. Well, now there is: the RSS Shortcode plugin. It looks like this, when functioning (with excerpts set to false): Playing around with VPS.netOn the GPL, Themes, Plugins & Free.Yet Another WordPress PodcastNew Plugin: RSS ShortcodeCSS Image Replacement, what's up Matt? This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast… -
CSS Image Replacement, what's up Matt?
25 Jun 2009 | 2:41 pmSo I'm a big fan of CSS image replacement, for several reasons, most importantly because it allows for a semantically correct page while having some text replaced with images, but also because I love sprites and I love using them well. I've also always been in favor of the use of CSS Image Replacement for headings, while not wanting to fake the search engines, I've kept a simple rule: if you OCR the page, it should be exactly the same as when you read the HTML. I've said so on Dave's blog back in January '08, and then, Matt Cutts agreed with me. Well, Dave pinged me today, and blogged it too,…
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Conversation Marketing
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Internet Marketing Puppy Syndrome
2 Jul 2009 | 8:32 pmSome friends of ours got a puppy. Her name's Gracie. She is adorable. Excruciatingly cute and soulful in a head tilting kind of way. Gracie is awesome. But she's a lot of work. Think about that when you decide to launch that blog, or create a newsletter, or set up a Twitter account. You know me - I rarely discourage folks from trying stuff. If you don't test and try, you can't make any progress. But you have to really try. You have to go into a project with your eyes open and a genuine desire to succeed. Approach it like you're looking at that puppy in the window: When you bring it home,… -
Bing's PPC Meltdown
29 Jun 2009 | 12:37 pmI don't try to find ways to pick on Microsoft's marketing techniques. It's just that they make it so easy. The folks at Bing have decided to buy pay per click ads on Google Adwords. Not a bad idea. But they need to learn a bit about phrase and exact match, I think: And my favorite: OK, I'll stop. I'm supposed to be on vacation, after all... Related Posts Bing Goes Bonk: Marketing lessons from the search wars Aggregation Aggravation, Part 1 -
Get Free Marketing Advice (With a Catch)
25 Jun 2009 | 8:48 pmI'm launching a new service called 1Thing. The idea: Provide internet marketing advice, in small bites, at a low price. I've designed a landing page, created the templates, etc.. And I hate it. The landing page is nasty. Horrible. It makes me cry. I've gotten fantastic advice from other marketers. And I've used quite a bit of it. Problem is, they gave me advice from the perspective of super-experienced internet marketers. I need advice from potential consumers. That's where you come in. If you read this blog looking for little nuggets of advice you can use to improve your site, then please,… -
Google Crawling the Wrong Javascript
25 Jun 2009 | 6:43 pmI'm throwing this story out there to see if anyone else has had a similar experience. Google's made a lot of noise recently about their newfound ability to crawl javascript and links that are built into a javascript. Last week I saw a 500% increase in 'page not found' errors in one client's Google Webmaster Tools. The links all looked like this: At first, I didn't make the connection between that and Google's improved javascript prowess. After looking at the client's pages, though, the only place the guilty link appears is in a javascript: In this context, the forward slash ('/') means… -
Speaking at OMS on July 1st
24 Jun 2009 | 2:41 pmI'm going to be on a panel at the Seattle Online Marketing Summit (OMS) next week, July 1st. The session is at 3:30 PM, and is titled "Integrating Email, Search, Social into the Entire Online Marketing Channel". Never mind me, though. Other folks on the panel include Anne kennedy of Beyond Ink and joblr.net, Blake Cahill from Visible Technologies, Jason Gan from Cisco and Steve Gelen as the moderator. I didn't write the description, so I don't have to suffer from whatever hubris-inspired revenge the gods would inflict for calling myself a "World's leading expert". Here's the whole…
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Left the Box
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Exploring Degrees of Online Sharing
29 Jun 2009 | 7:02 amMany people that consider social media, think that the targets are too small a demographic to be worthwhile. They say, “What good is targeting, 15,000 people when I can create an ad that will reach many more than that?”. Although, on the surface, social media may seem to be a waste of time, because of the ability to organically share, the basic numbers can be misleading. To fully understand how content is shared on the web, we must understand degrees of sharing. credit What Does Degrees of Sharing Mean? When a consumer shares some sort of content, they enter a chain. The content… -
8 Ways Social Media Should Change Your Marketing
22 Jun 2009 | 7:21 amSocial media has turned our fundamental understanding of “marketing” and “advertisement” upside down. It has changed the way we think about connecting with customers and afforded us a number of new tools to do just that. So what exactly has changed? Personality The idea of the big gray company has been shattered. Being an unreachable, distant, better than you, entity is no longer sustainable. Instead, consumers want to talk to a company representative like they would a friend. They expect multiple points of connection, each offering something unique. Targeting Because… -
Yoostar: Outreach Case Study
13 Jun 2009 | 7:10 amAbout 3 weeks ago, I had an awesome opportunity to see a demo of a new product called Yoostar. I’m not going to talk about the product (although, you should definitely check Yoostar out, it’s awesome!). Instead, I’m going to tell you why I would count the Yoostar outreach campaign an amazing success. Yoostar’s marketing decided to outreach to bloggers and invite them to see a presentation on the product they’re releasing. So since I’ve already recommended that sometimes emailing bloggers is a great idea, let’s look at what Yoostar did right. The… -
Conversation Focus – Don’t Forget the Others
9 Jun 2009 | 6:33 amWhen so many of us talk about social media, we talk about “the conversation”, as if it’s some kind of holy grail. The problem I have with the term is that, not only is it short sighted, but also ties us to the idea of message control. So what’s wrong with “the conversation”? Well the simple phrase implies that there is only one conversation. The truth is that for most brands, consumers are talking about multiple topics. Some are good while others may be negative. credit An important part of a social media strategy should include recognizing the many topics… -
Tackling Spam on the Social Web
20 May 2009 | 6:30 amSocial media is the next evolution in how we use the web. However, with all the great things that have come from our new found ability to connect on the web, we’ve also made the creation of spam much easier. Nowadays, it’s easy for almost anyone to create a presence on the web. With our quest for ease, we’ve made it easy to automate the process. Until we’re able to differentiate spam from actual information, we’ll be unable to properly index and search the social web. Problems: One of the biggest problems with social media is that currently, many websites allow…
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search engine marketing - Google News
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Dental Marketing Company, Sinai Marketing, Inc., Is Ready for Bing.com - SYS-CON Media (press release)
3 Jul 2009 | 7:27 amDental Marketing Company, Sinai Marketing, Inc., Is Ready for Bing.comSYS-CON Media (press release)Although Bing is still in its infancy, the arrival of a new search engine poses new challenges for Web optimization and search engine optimization (SEO) and more » -
Html email newsletters 'need an SEO balance' - Global Gold Internet Services
3 Jul 2009 | 6:43 amHtml email newsletters 'need an SEO balance'Global Gold Internet ServicesHtml email newsletters need to include keywords to boost a company's search engine optimisation (SEO), however, the content should still be readable, and more » -
Hamar Digital Announces Partnership with SEO.cc - 1888 Press Release (press release)
2 Jul 2009 | 10:09 pmPR Web (press release)Hamar Digital Announces Partnership with SEO.cc1888 Press Release (press release)SEO.cc implements visitor tracking software and customizes the reporting in order to meet each client's needs. Fort Lauderdale, FL (1888pressrelease) July Search Engine Strategies Returns to Germany for 7th Time with SES PR Web (press release)SEO 'must target end users'Internet Marketing NewsThe 3 SEO/SEM Conference PersonasSearch Engine LandBigNews.biz (press release) -Dealer Marketing Magazine -Wire Service Canada (press release)all 105 news articles » -
friendfeed Joins The Real-Time Search Race - Search Engine Land
2 Jul 2009 | 5:39 pmfriendfeed Joins The Real-Time Search RaceSearch Engine LandMatt mcgee is the Search Engine Land Assignment Editor, and offers search marketing consulting and training to businesses of all sizes. and more » -
Unlock the Secrets of Successful Websites - PC World
2 Jul 2009 | 2:22 pmUnlock the Secrets of Successful WebsitesPC WorldIt's an extension of search engine optimization and represents a powerful medium: you. I hope that in sharing my story of discovering SEO, how it works and and more »
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Search Engine Guide
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Steve Chicken Little Ballmer
3 Jul 2009 | 12:20 pmby Sage Lewis Microsoft's Steve Ballmer has some pretty extreme views for the business world. I think he might be looking in the mirror too closely when he talks about the business world as a whole. Check out our small business news site. -
Give Bing Some Money Love
30 Jun 2009 | 12:07 pmby Sage Lewis Search Engine Roundtable gave some interesting advice on upping your budget over at Bing/Adcenter. Check out our small business news site. -
Sparking Viral Spread - Make it Easy For Them
29 Jun 2009 | 3:17 pmby Jennifer Laycock With more and more people signing on to social sites like Twitter and Facebook, companies are working overtime to figure out how to make the companies, products and offerings go viral. While I've written quite a few article about the theories behind preparing a campaign that's likely to go viral, the truth is that some of the most effective viral campaigns are also the simplest. Sometimes it's less about creating a great idea and more about enabling the spread. I saw the perfect example of this earlier today while hunting for a pair of sandals. I was looking for a pair of… -
How To Claim Your Google Maps Listing
29 Jun 2009 | 2:13 pmby Miriam Ellis A few day ago, a business owner told me about a rather complex problem with his Google Maps business listing and asked me what to do about it. My explanation was pretty long, starting with the need to claim his listing and ending with a warning that fixing errors in Google Maps isn't always simple. It took several paragraphs of detailed text to cover what I felt the business owner needed to do and he came back to me with a, "That's great, but how do I claim my listing?" Sometimes, I get ahead of myself when I'm answering questions and in this case, I forgot for a moment that… -
Searching for profits more than answers
29 Jun 2009 | 7:49 amby Mike Moran Image by kbock70 via Flickr Everyone is staring hard at Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, and I mostly like what I see, with one exception. I've written before about the search engine conflict of interest between highlighting their own properties and providing the truly best answer. In the quest for ever more cash, search engines are presenting results that point to their own pages. What does that mean to the searcher and to the search marketer? If you don't know what I am talking about, take a look at search results from any major search engine today. They often highlight…
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Pepperjam Blog
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Dear Legislators – The Amazon Tax Won’t Raise Revenue
24 Jun 2009 | 7:04 amDear Legislators, The Amazon Tax is unconstitutional and is a desperate measure to raise tax revenue. First, the law is unconstitutional because it ultimately would require sellers with no physical presence in your State to collect sales tax based exclusively on contracts with affiliate marketers that reside in your State. Second, while your intent to raise needed funds to run your State during these difficult economic times deserves considerable respect, the Amazon Tax won’t raise the tax revenue you intend it to raise. I am aware that the intent of the Amazon Tax is to use the… -
Facebook Vanity URL = www.facebook.com/pepperjamceo
23 Jun 2009 | 10:06 amRE: Facebook Vanity URL’s Did you sign-up yet for your Facebook Vanity URL? Just last week Facebook started allowing FB members to change their profile URL’s so they would be easy for others to remember. CLICK HERE if you haven’t secured your FB vanity URL yet. Well….I tried to get “pepperjam” and that was taken….I tried “krisjones,” “kristopherjones,” “kjones,” and several variations and they were all taken. So………I decided to go with “pepperjamceo.” @pepperjamceo is my Twitter alias so… -
Search Marketing Expo (SMX) Launches Affiliate Program on Pepperjam Network
22 Jun 2009 | 1:50 pmWe don’t typically blog about our affiliate network new advertiser launches on Pepperjam Blog, but it seemed important to let our Pepperjam agency followers know that today we launched the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) Affiliate Program on Pepperjam Network. You will know SMX as the recently launched (about two years ago or so) search marketing conference led by industry veterans Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman. Danny is one of the original thought shapers of search marketing and was the founder of the Search Engines Strategies (SES) Conference. We are really proud to launch the SMX… -
Top 5 Ways to Build Your Business with Twitter
22 Jun 2009 | 10:07 amHere are my tops five strategies for building your business with Twitter. (5) Manage Your Brand. Use a service like EasyTweets.com to monitor people who mention your brand – Easy Tweets will send you an e-mail when someone on Twitter mentions your brand. Similarly, you can use the service to monitor any keywords that you’d like. (4) Better Serve Your Customers. Twitter is real-time and so should your customer service – leverage Twitter to address customer concerns and answer questions in real-time. (3) Develop Edge. Twitter is the hottest new social network in the world. -
Come See me Keynote Affiliate Convention in Denver, Colorado
16 Jun 2009 | 10:39 amI’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon for Denver, Colorado to keynote Affiliate Convention. Affiliate Convention is a multi-day conference and networking event for the affiliate marketing industry. This is the first time tha Affiliate Convention has been held “in the States,” but the conference has been going on for years to sold out audiences across the world. I’m keynoting Day 1 of the conference. Other than some opening remarks my keynote will be totally interactive…leveraging Twitter, Facebook, and other sources to take questions from people around the globe. In…
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GOOGLE BLOG SEARCH: SEM
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Search Engine Marketing SEO Advice - Things You Need To Know About ...
3 Jul 2009 | 11:13 amIn our times when computer communications via the Internet have become vital, presently, the traditional means of business promotion seem often insufficient. -
Enhance Your Sales With Search Engine Marketing | Webspaceme Articles
3 Jul 2009 | 11:11 amAnyone who has a web business will know that search engine marketing is the best way in which you can get popularity on the search engines. We all know, that. -
What A Search Engine Marketing Firm Can Do For Your Business
3 Jul 2009 | 5:32 amServices available from SEO services firms vary by company. Some are one-stop center for all sales and marketing guidance, strategies, techniques and tools will ever need you, while others provide only a few different marketing plans. ... -
The 3 SEO/SEM Conference Personas
3 Jul 2009 | 4:14 amI recently returned from the successful SMX-Advanced search engine optimization and advertising conference, and I had an epiphany: as a speaker, usability. -
The 3 SEO/SEM Conference Personas | Search Engine Marketing ...
3 Jul 2009 | 4:14 amPublished July 3rd, 2009 in Search Engine Marketing .
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Search Engine Land
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US Justice Dept. Formally Confirms Google Books Inquiry
3 Jul 2009 | 5:34 amIt’s not really a surprise or even news that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed yesterday it was formally investigating the terms of the Google Book Search settlement. This was known as far back as April and essentially confirmed last month by various publications reporting that formal requests (called “civil investigative demands”) had been [...] .... -
The 3 SEO/SEM Conference Personas
3 Jul 2009 | 4:14 amI recently returned from the successful SMX-Advanced search engine optimization and advertising conference, and I had an epiphany: as a speaker, usability principles are applicable to these conferences. Which usability principle, you might ask? Before usability professionals create an information architecture and corresponding interfaces, they must identify and address various personas or profiles. The primary persona [...] .... -
FriendFeed Joins The Real-Time Search Race
2 Jul 2009 | 4:28 pmAdd FriendFeed to the long and growing list of players who are trying to win the race for comprehensive and quick real-time search. FriendFeed has always had a real-time element — the ability to track social activities almost as they happen. But the company has announced the addition of real-time search today. If you’ve used search.twitter.com, [...] .... -
Google Blog Search Sees Twitter Trends & Raises With Blog Search ‘Hot Queries’
2 Jul 2009 | 12:52 pmA lot of the innovation in search these days is all about What’s happening right now? Twitter is the poster child where real-time search is concerned, and despite its ongoing spam problem, Twitter Trends has become one of the primary places to get a snapshot of what’s happening now. Google Blog Search is getting in the [...] .... -
What Ads Types Are Most “Helpful”? Search Ads Follow Newspapers, TV
2 Jul 2009 | 8:59 amTrade magazine AdWeek and pollster Harris Interactive conducted a survey in early June among 2,521 US adults. People were asked what types of ads they found most “helpful” and what types of ads they ignored. Below are the top-line results as well as the age and geographically segmented data. Most helpful in making purchase decisions: 37 percent [...] ....
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Search Engine Journal
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Google Shrunk its Search Results Page
3 Jul 2009 | 9:09 amHonestly I didn’t notice the difference until I read from Mashable that Google have changed the way it displays search results. As usual, I couldn’t find any announcement about it at the Official Google Blog. So, I take it to mean that Google may still be ironing out some kinks related to this “enhancement.” So, what are the changes? There are three “unnoticeable” things actually. First, which should have been quite obvious I were closely paying attention was the shrunk Google logo at the top of the page. Then there is also now a big space in between the… -
As Google Book Search Gets Better, Here Comes the Anti-Trust Regulators
3 Jul 2009 | 8:39 amSo while U.S. Anti-Trust Regulators are planning to investigate Google’s deal with book publishers to settle copyright issues amounting to $125m, Google continues to make Book Search a better and worthwhile service for their users. If you’ve been following this issue which has been dragging on since perhaps the day Google Book Search’s inception, you’d remember that Google has received so many criticisms because of this project. And so it is not surprising that Google would not bother the investigation that much. So, anyway it’s something that is yet to… -
Google Blog Search Adds RSS, Hot Queries, Latest Blog Posts
2 Jul 2009 | 1:52 pmNothing innovative here really. Just some functional features which should have been added a long time to Google’s Blog Search. Then again, better late than never. So, Google has just added RSS/ATOM subscription, list of the most popular terms that users are using, and latest blog posts from, I guess “more prominent” blogs indexed by Google Blog Search?The RSS/ATOM subscription is nothing new really. It’s just a way for users to subscribe to any topic or story using any feed reader. For those who don’t use feed readers, Google Blog Search front page can now… -
Interview with Fraser Kelton of Glue, New Promising Social Network
2 Jul 2009 | 1:26 pmThis week we feature the interview with Fraser Kelton, working at new and exciting social media project Glue, developed by AdaptiveBlue. 1. Please share your background. What brought you to the Web 2.0? Also please tell us a few words about your [other] projects you were doing before joining AdaptiveBlue. I’m originally from Hamilton, a beautiful Canadian city, an hour southwest of Toronto. I’ve been fascinated with computers since my first Commodore 64 and I’ve been addicted to the web since my first taste. Before joining AdaptiveBlue I was at a seed stage investment firm. -
Landing Pages On A SMB Budget
2 Jul 2009 | 9:51 amCreating new landing pages for testing is getting cheaper. And scalable. So there are fewer and fewer reasons for SMBs not to be testing their landing pages and sites to optimize conversion rates. Testing landing pages has long been a preoccupation of mine, particularly because of the traditionally prohibitive costs. Even if you use a design contest at a place like 99Designs.com, you’re still paying $300 - $500 for a good graphic look and feel. Plus you often need to pay about $100 for a competent graphics slicing shop to handle your job. (Yes, others can do this for less, but…
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Sphinn: Hot Topics
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Internet Liberalisation - Is it really for the greater good?
3 Jul 2009 | 10:39 amICANN controls how we use the internet, and they are controlled by their members. Should domain registrars really have so much power over our brands, search results and simple understanding of the web? How will ICANN's plan to open up countless new 23 Vote(s) -
Moonfruit, the most talked about company on Twitter
3 Jul 2009 | 7:25 amThe guys at Moonfruit show how it's done over at Twitter. Clever people.28 Vote(s) -
Five Ways To Turn Blog Comments Into Conversations
2 Jul 2009 | 8:02 pm"Explore blog comments and discuss what can be done to turn them into real conversations... Via the Internet, you clearly have access to a huge inventory of information and knowledge. However that is not the most amazing aspect of the Internet. Mo37 Vote(s) -
On Growing Demand for Real Time Search Engines
2 Jul 2009 | 3:46 pmGrowing need for the real time search engines. Users wants real time searches. Real-time searches are more valuable because it lets you know what's happening right now on any given topic. Companies use it to handle customer services. News junkies us33 Vote(s) -
Should Your Small Business Have a Blog?
2 Jul 2009 | 12:45 pmA good piece listing pros and cons of small business blogging.39 Vote(s)
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ISEdb.COM - Articles
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Google Looking to Target Ads According to Credit Rating
29 Jun 2009 | 10:49 pmIn a move that will have many concerns about Internet privacy issues raised, Google has started analyzing search behavior according to aggregated consumer credit information. Some worry that this could, in the future, lead to the company targeting specific ads toward consumers with high credit ratings, with custom ads. -
Buy Your Blogs and Tweets with New Services
29 Jun 2009 | 5:41 pmThe advantages of having a blog are pretty well-known – they are key for giving visitors an incentive to return to a site. Not only can they increase and maintain traffic, but they are great ways to incorporate keywords, which can help for SEO. Two new services on the market allow sites to increase their web 2.0 presence and search engine ranking without much bother at all. -
Setting up Semantic Search
29 Jun 2009 | 4:30 amGet ready to get excited about something pretty geeky. It’s a whole new way of searching. And it’s just been released in beta. ISEdb.com reported in March about the soon-to-be launch of WolframAlpha. Since then, a whole lot of excitement, accompanied by concerns, has arisen. -
The Pros and Cons of Yahoo’s New My Display Ads
23 Jun 2009 | 4:39 amYahoo recently announced the launch of its new online advertising service, My Display Ads. The service appears to be ideal for those smaller online businesses that want to take their bland, text-based ads to the next level. However, the service has already been proclaimed by the blogosphere to be far from perfect. Here we’ll take a look at the pros and cons of Yahoo’s new ad service. -
Google Changes the Game: the new rules explained
22 Jun 2009 | 12:23 amIf you’ve got nofollow links on your website, better listen up. Google’s head of Webspam, Matt Cutts, recently divulged that Google is no longer allowing PageRank sculpting. For those of you I’ve already lost, here is a quick lesson on the history of PageRank sculpting. In the recent past, you see, Google allowed websites to determine how they would spend their own PageRank. They did this by inserting nofollows onto certain links in order to give more credit to the dofollow links.
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Majon: Search Engine Marketing
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Answers about Web Links
3 Jul 2009 | 6:00 amHaving questions about web links is quite common. While linking can be a substantial tool in building a successful website, with so many dynamics, it can also be a little overwhelming at first. One controversial subject has to do with using submission software and/or services. Some web owners believe this is a great means of website promotion but more and more think search engine indexing can be done in a more efficient and effective manner. The downside to software and services is that many of the larger, more powerful search engines will discover this and actually ban your site. Although it… -
Benefits of Using Press Release Services
2 Jul 2009 | 6:00 amFor years, the press release has been considered a great tool in marketing a new company, whether a brick and mortar business or one managed online. One of the challenges in using press releases is to know the right people to whom they need to be sent. This is where press release services are so helpful. With reputable press release services, information that announces the launch of your online business, a new product or service being offered, or other newsworthy information is sent out to people who are interested in reading it. With a well-written press release, you get to make a statement… -
Direct Website Marketing with Mini-Sites
1 Jul 2009 | 6:00 amYou have an excellent opportunity to sell products, actually surpassing those sold on larger websites. How? With what are called mini-sites. The benefit to these mini-sites is that they are intended to get a single action from visitors. This means the sites are less cumbersome and simpler, which actually makes visiting easier and more enjoyable for some people. However, even mini-sites need direct website marketing. With a mini-site you are giving potential customers with a choice of two things. First, they can take action, which usually involves buying something, or they can back out of the… -
Internet Marketing Using Forums
30 Jun 2009 | 6:00 amMost people think of forums simply as a place where people gather to chat, share ideas, and learn about new things. In truth, forums are much more. You can actually use forums as a means of Internet marketing. No matter what you have to offer, you want to get word out to the right people. Forums are beneficial in that you can choose forums that involve people who would have interest in your particular product or service. The bottom line is that people love learning new things and expressing views. Because of this, online forums are very busy places. It is common to enter just about any forum… -
Tips for Web Directory Submission
29 Jun 2009 | 6:00 amAn excellent way to reach out to people and bring them back to your website is by using web directory submission. With this, your website sent to directories. From there, the information is reviewed by actual people who index your site. The results are incredible since people conducting a search for products or services that you sell will be able to find you by going to the appropriate directory. However, for web directory submission to be effective, there are a few tips that can help. The following are some great guidelines to use when considering web directory submission for your online…
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Search Engine Watch Blog
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Search and Community Track at SES San Jose: NACA's Save The Dream Tour
3 Jul 2009 | 8:54 amAt SES San Jose 2009, I've been asked to make a solo presentation to kick of the Search and Community Track. The title of the session is "How to Optimize for Search & Engage the Community." I've been working on my presentation, but it lacked a compelling case study that illustrated how a community organization had used search engine optimization and YouTube video to generate measurable results. I had planned to show examples of videos created by Barack Obama's presidential campaign, Monty Python, and Blendtec, but plans have a way of changing. Then, I got involved with the Neighborhood… -
FriendFeed Launches Real-Time Search; Includes Facebook and Twitter Submissions
3 Jul 2009 | 7:37 amBuzz has been building about real-time search. Of course, you can search real-time Tweets on Twitter, Facebook is testing search on its live Feed, and Bing just added limited Twitter search to its engine. Now, FriendFeed is launching real-time search and it has the potential to be the mackdaddy of them all. Here's why. FriendFeed is a social aggregator. It's a one-stop shop to check and update a bunch of different networks, blogs, etc. Now, you can search all of that in real-time. The drawback? It only searches what people submit to FriendFeed. Whoever does that can basically say "Check" in… -
Trade Groups Outline New Behavioral Advertising Standards
2 Jul 2009 | 11:05 amIn January, four trade groups announced that they would be developing behavioral advertising standards. The groups are The American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), The Association of National Advertisers (ANA), The Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The standards have now been released and are as follows: The Education Principle calls for participation in efforts to inform individuals and businesses about online behavioral advertising. The industry intends, in a major educational campaign involving over 500 million ad impressions over… -
Google Mobile Optimizes Search Results for 38 Languages
2 Jul 2009 | 10:31 amIf you can access the mobile internet via your cell phone, then you now have access to newly optimized Google Mobile search. It reaches 38 different languages in over 60 countries. The optimized Google mobile search experience began last December when it was rolled out to iPhone and Android phones in the US. Then in March, it was rolled out to iPhone and Android phones in over 20 countries. The optimizes mobile search incorporates universal search when appropriate. There's also a focus on local search due to the nature of searching on the go. -
Real Estate Search Sites See Big Growth in the First Half of 2009
2 Jul 2009 | 9:54 amReal estate search sites Zillow and Trulia are seeing big growth in traffic, despite the economy and its housing woes. Zillow saw a 67% increase in unique visitors while Trulia saw a 40% increase in uniques. Zillow averaged 8.3 million unique visitors per month so far in 2009. They're experiencing 35% more listings with a current total of 3.6 million listings. Customers submitted 265,000 loan requests which returned 3.5 million custom loan quotes during this time. Zillow is also experiencing great success with its iPhone app, which has has seen 535,000 downloads. Trulia saw 30 million unique…
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Internet Marketing News Watch
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Jeremy Gislason & Simon Hodgkinson Releases 'The 'Freemium Business Model'' Free Report
3 Jul 2009 | 11:32 amJeremy Gislason & Simon Hodgkinson have released a free report entitled 'The 'Freemium Business Model''. According to Jeremy & Simon, this free report is the pre-launch report of 'Marketing Main Event 4' which is launching on July 14,2009. ['Free Report'] -
'Get Your Free 'Atomic Cheese' Here' by 'Marketing Main Event 4' Blog
3 Jul 2009 | 11:20 am'Marketing Main Event 4' Blog's latest blog post is titled "'Get Your Free 'Atomic Cheese' Here'". [Blog] -
Kelly McCausey Launches 'Blog Internship' Membership Program
3 Jul 2009 | 7:33 amKelly McCausey has launched 'Blog Internship' membership program. According to Kelly, 'Blog Internship' membership is ten week program which offers access to her 'Blogging Internship' curriculum. ['Blog Internship' Membership Program] -
'There’s Always Time to Promote!' by ‘SquidU Blog’
3 Jul 2009 | 7:16 amSquidU Blog's latest blog post is titled "There’s Always Time to Promote!". [Blog] -
'Friday Podcast: Lessons Learned From Launching An Affiliate Network' by Andrew Wee
3 Jul 2009 | 6:09 amAndrew Wee's latest blog post is titled "Friday Podcast: Lessons Learned From Launching An Affiliate Network". [Blog]
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The Search Agents
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Facebook Vanity URL Best Practices
1 Jul 2009 | 4:27 pmAs many folks know, over the past 3 weeks Facebook has implemented a mechanism for assigning vanity URLs to individual user profiles and to product Pages. TSA participated in the process on behalf of clients by reserving some vanity URLs, thus preventing the general public from obtaining these vanity names during the initial launch on June 9. In addition, many clients enforced their trademarked and copyrighted terms directly through Facebook’s trademark reservation process. As a result, many core URL’s have now been assigned for clients to their main Facebook Page. In lieu of a… -
Are the Days of Keyword Density Over?
1 Jul 2009 | 7:44 amAs many of you may have noticed, keyword density within content is becoming less and less significant when it comes to search engine rankings. The search engines are more intelligent than they once were and don’t need keywords shoved down their gullet 27 times within 400 words of content to figure out what your page should rank for. If you have a focused and unique Title Tag, combined with a focused and unique Meta Description and on-page content, they probably already have a clear idea of how they should index your content. Just because you have more keywords or the exact same amount of… -
Practical eCommerce Interview with Frank Lee
1 Jul 2009 | 3:32 amThe Search Agency’s Frank Lee was recently interviewed by the editors of Practical eCommerce on the subject of driving improved PPC performance on Bing. He points out that for most advertisers and merchants, the majority of their budget and account management will be devoted to Google. But the recent growth in search traffic, clickthrough rates, and conversion rates on Bing provide some great opportunities to increase volume. Practical eCommerce is an online magazine for small to midsize ecommerce merchants. Founded in 2005, it covers topics such as shopping carts, search engine… -
Top 10 reasons you know your plumbers’ website is optimized to rank #1 (circa 1999 black hat SEO)
30 Jun 2009 | 1:22 pmThe word ‘plumber’ appears 42 times in the first paragraph Your ‘links’ page contains 500 links with site categories such as ‘Used truck parts’, ‘Beverly Hills real estate’ and ‘Dry cleaners’ There’s 120 words that coincidently match the exact same color as your page background Keywords Meta tags contain the words ‘clean your pipes’ and ‘leaky faucet’ in 72 different combinations Page description is “Welcome to our plumbers page for plumbers who plumb in our area. This plumbers page is very… -
Bing Best Practices
30 Jun 2009 | 7:35 amAs Frank Lee discussed in his post last week, Bing is off and running and showing good conversion results for many clients. How best to take advantage of this short term (and potentially longer term) boost? By most accounts, MSN is really pushing relevancy for its Bing listings. In addition to testing fewer ads for keywords as well as the way the listings are presented – we’ve received some indication that MSN is actually removing paid ads for some users who do not click on them. Meaning, if a user only clicks on organic listings then at a certain point, paid listings will not show…
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DMNews Search Marketing
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Set your search budget to be based on its profitability
30 Jun 2009 | 4:56 amIf you win an auction but pay more for an item than you would have paid somewhere else, is that auction a success? How long can a company stay afloat if it pays more to acquire each new customer than it makes in profit? Keep these questions in mind as you set up your keyword bids. Limits must be understood in the context of profitability, compared to what you pay to acquire a customer through other channels. -
Set your search budget to be based on its profitability
30 Jun 2009 | 4:56 amIf you win an auction but pay more for an item than you would have paid somewhere else, is that auction a success? How long can a company stay afloat if it pays more to acquire each new customer than it makes in profit? Keep these questions in mind as you set up your keyword bids. Limits must be understood in the context of profitability, compared to what you pay to acquire a customer through other channels. -
Technique: How to build the best PPC landing page
29 Jun 2009 | 8:25 amYou've paid for the click and now you need to make the most of it. We asked three experts to share their secrets on how to design the best landing page so that every pay-per-click lead from a search engine turns into a buyer. -
Technique: How to build the best PPC landing page
29 Jun 2009 | 8:25 amYou've paid for the click and now you need to make the most of it. We asked three experts to share their secrets on how to design the best landing page so that every pay-per-click lead from a search engine turns into a buyer. -
Key search marketing tip: Get your keywords organized
22 Jun 2009 | 10:41 amSuccessful PPC and SEO starts with keyword discovery, research and organization. In paid search, discovery and research are important, since searches of the keywords you pick are what you're paying for. Organization is an often overlooked, yet critical, task. Intelligent keyword management and organization are important for organic search optimization.
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eMarketer Articles
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Click! So What?
1 Jul 2009 | 9:01 pmGian Fulgoni Chairman comScore -
No Exploding Sales This Independence Day
1 Jul 2009 | 9:01 pmLife, liberty and the pursuit of a retail boost. -
Delivering Digital Marketing
30 Jun 2009 | 9:01 pmKarin von Abrams eMarketer Senior Analyst Friends, not cannibals. -
Execs Go Online for Business Intelligence
30 Jun 2009 | 9:01 pmInternet = Information -
The Sad Tale of Abandoned Shopping Carts
29 Jun 2009 | 9:01 pmSubtract from cart
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e-Consultancy: SEM
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Pictures from Econsultancy’s Digital Sail 2009
3 Jul 2009 | 4:47 amOn Wednesday, the day the government officially announced a heatwave, Team Econsultancy and friends rocked up at Portsmouth harbour for a day of messing about in boats. It was a lot of fun, obviously...The more nautically-minded representatives from the internet industry include Summit Media, Bunnyfoot, Transversal and Fifty Food Squid, who sponsored boats and generally made our Digital Sail event more competitive than it might otherwise have been (there was some racing in the afternoon). You can check out the Flickr slideshow to get a visual representation of what we got up to... Next year… -
Businesses 'must turn CMS into a profit centre'
3 Jul 2009 | 3:45 amOne of the most important changes in the world of content management systems over the last few years has been the movement of ownership from IT to business and marketing. Squiz.net put on a great one-day conference about web content management at Australia House in London yesterday which featured a presentation from Mick MacComascaigh, Gartner's lead analyst for web content management. Companies are continuing to invest in CMS through the recession because the right web content management (WCM) platform can help to drive competive advantage, helping with both customer acquisition and… -
The Economist launches a massive ad campaign - but is that a good thing?
3 Jul 2009 | 3:20 amToday it was announced that the London-based current affairs/economics magazine The Economist is launching a far-reaching ad campaign aimed at broadening its readership. It's a unique title in a unique position with an equally unique readership. But an ad campaign could spoil thatEarlier this month it was announced that The Economist had effectively dodged the unfortunate fate that has befallen nearly every news organisation in the the English-speaking world by posting both profits and circulation increases in fiscal year 2009 Revenue increased 17% to $510 million. The Economist’s… -
5 ways to get people to pay for your content online
3 Jul 2009 | 2:01 amPaid content and subscription services are hot once again thanks to an economic downturn that has reminded online publishers that ad revenues are not impervious. But paid content isn't easy online (newspapers can attest to that) and many publishers inevitably fail at making the transition from free to paid. Here are several ways you can boost your chances of succeeding when selling content online.Offer a free trial. A free trial offer can be very effective at driving business. How long should a free trial be? That depends on the type of content you provide. A free trial should be long enough… -
10 informative web design presentations
3 Jul 2009 | 1:02 amThe web has been around for well over a decade now and during that time, the field of web design has evolved quite a bit. Yet while web technology has changed at a record pace, the principles of good design largely remain the same. Here are 10 informative web design presentations that discuss web design and web design principles.User Centered Design 101 Making Good Design Decisions Design Anti Patterns - How to Design a Poor Web Experience Designing For Sign Up What web designers could learn from print designers User Experience Utopia Future Of Social Interface Design Design 4 Developers The…
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Search Marketing Standard
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Reconsidering The AdWords Content Network
1 Jul 2009 | 7:17 amAs a qualified AdWords Professional, one of the first pieces of advice I give to new clients is that the automated option for ‘search and content’ be turned off, leaving adverts that only display on Google’s search results pages. I do this because time and time again the default search-and-content option delivers weak campaigns, poor [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard Reconsidering The AdWords Content Network Related posts:Discussion: Worthy AdWords Alternatives5 Ways NOT to Manage Your Google AdWords’ CampaignKeeping Up With Changes to AdWords Quality Score Guidelines -
Dear Mr. SMB - Internet Marketing Is Not Free
29 Jun 2009 | 6:54 amI have recently been hearing a lot of grousing about the Internet and the services tied to it. It’s not the, “Well, my Internet connection was down so I’m ticked off” kind of talk, either. In a way, I wish it were. No, it’s worse than that. It’s a continuing mantra that comes from the SMB [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard Dear Mr. SMB - Internet Marketing Is Not Free Related posts:Sources of Free SEO AdviceFree Insider Knowledge from Yahoo!TopSpot Internet Marketing Solutions -
Editor’s Picks: June 22-26, 2009
26 Jun 2009 | 9:19 amNegative reviews and your business. With the rise of social media and increased customer reliance on consumer reviews, many businesses dread negative comments and try to avoid them at all costs. This makes a lot of sense and there are a lot of firms out there offering online reputation management services. However, believe it or [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard Editor’s Picks: June 22-26, 2009 Related posts:Editor’s Picks: June 1-5, 2009Editor’s Picks: June 15-19, 2009Editor’s Picks: February 23-27, 2009 -
Considering Image Search Optimization
24 Jun 2009 | 5:41 amWhen we talk about SEO and optimizing a site, we’re normally talking about text-based optimization and the use of content in the form of the written word to increase positions and visibility in search engine results pages. However, if you’re a website owner or publisher with a particularly visual product (such as an art gallery, [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard Considering Image Search Optimization Related posts:7 Tips For Successful Video OptimizationAre You Wise To Universal Search?Conduct Your Own SEO Site Audit - Part 3 -
Do Small Businesses Have Online Reputations to Monitor?
23 Jun 2009 | 6:57 amThe buzz in Internet marketing these days is getting much louder around online reputation monitoring and management (ORM). As with most Internet marketing concerns, the small and medium business (SMB) remains among the great unwashed with the latest and greatest. In fact, some statistics show that 40% of small businesses still don’t even have a [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard Do Small Businesses Have Online Reputations to Monitor? Related posts:Gain Insights, Courtesy of GoogleContent Strategies for Small BusinessesIntegrated Persuasion: Online And Offline
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The SEM Blog
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Twitter – Why Automatic Twitter Accounts Fail
11 Jun 2009 | 8:33 amIf you are on Twitter I’m sure you’ve encountered that surreal moment when a company/organization/individual starts following you after you tweet about them. Sometimes it is great and sometimes it is creepy and then sometimes it is downright funny. Case in point: Yesterday, in my personal Twitter account I tweeted about Hockey being ‘the sport of kings!’ @TheOtherLeslie I'm talking about Hockey - the sport of kings! Balsillie, RIM/Blackberry CEO is trying to buy a team about 17 hours ago from twhirl in reply to TheOtherLeslie 30 minutes later the basketball team the… -
Microsoft begins revealing New Decision Engine - Bing
28 May 2009 | 10:37 amI suspect Microsoft has long felt the burr under their saddle when talking about Google. Looks like their competitive nature has them back in the headlines. They are unveiling the newest updates to their Search Engine technology called Bing. The biggest question is, can it be a competitor to Google? We do recognize that Search is improving and changing. Bing as being billed as a Decision Engine and you can see short presentation about it at www.decisionengine.com. In the first versions, Bing will focus on four areas: Making a purchase decision Planning a trip Researching a heath condition… -
Twitter is Changing – Search, Rank and Indexing
8 May 2009 | 6:46 amMost people on Twitter have found their way over to the Twitter search tool at http://search.twitter.com. It will show a reverse timeline of all tweets containing keywords you are interested in seeing. This is extremely helpful in looking up brands, trends, and finding other people who have similar interests to follow. Twitter Search is about to change. CNET notes Twitter will start indexing not just the contents of the 140 character microblogs, but also crawling and indexing the content of pages sent in shortened URLs. This will provide a much clearer indication of what people are interested… -
Adwords Tactics for Competitive Revenue and Traffic
10 Apr 2009 | 7:46 amWhen revenue dollars dip or seem to slow, it is natural to review tactics with a closer eye. One way to stay competitive is target specific and trending keywords. Everyone is looking for a good value and the best way to stretch their dollars, but this is especially true in the last twelve months. Here are a few tips from Google Adwords Tactics you can apply to several areas of web marketing. Use Value related keywords: Review your keyword list and top phrases driving traffic to your site. Google Trends clearly shows a trend for the word Coupon in rising trend for the past twelve… -
Analytics for Twitter – Twitalyzer Review
20 Mar 2009 | 1:13 pmThere is hardly an hour much less a day that goes by without a mention of Twitter and it’s growing influence. Eric T. Petersen has watched the growth of Twitter and built a new set of terms to measure users against benchmarks. Twitter analytics is fairly new, so it makes sense new ways to define and benchmark would be needed. We often get really powerful questions from clients wanting to know the simple things like, “Why would I Twitter?” or “Am I doing it right?” With Twitalyzer, you can see the measurement of key metrics and see how you are doing against others. You see the…
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All Things SEM / SEO Blog
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An Agency SEO's Perspective on Nofollow
16 Jun 2009 | 3:39 pmAlright I'm giving in. I can't help but write a piece about the recent announcement from Matt Cutts regarding how nofollow links are treated by Google. There's been a lot of coverage on this so I'll skip rehashing it and instead provide some perspective from the side of the agency SEO in the trenches working with client sites. For simplicity, I'm going to interview myself. Are you embarrassed about having recommended the nofollow attribute? Not at all. Matt Cutts stated that the change in how nofollow is treated happened in the last year which means that recommending… -
Twitter is like… Metaphors for Newbies and Veterans Alike
7 May 2009 | 6:21 amDescribing Twitter to people that haven't used it isn't particularly easy. So I thought I'd take a stab at helping people understand what's it's like by comparing it to every day things. And with that, Twitter is like… 1. A gaggle of teen-age girls. All talking at the same time with no one actually listening. Not that it matters, because no one is saying anything important anyway. 2. Walking through a crowded room. You catch snippets of conversations, but can't really tell what people are talking about because you didn't hear the beginning of the… -
Getting The Most From Your SEO Agency
4 May 2009 | 5:59 amA lot of SEO clients aren't getting the most out of their SEO engagements. Not because the SEO agency is doing anything to be deceptive or being uncooperative in any way, but simply because the SEO client hasn't put much thought or effort into what they should be doing. In an earlier post I described several different SEO client types along with highlighting the good vs. the bad. In this post I'm going to expand on the idea of what makes an SEO client a good client which in turn results in the client getting the biggest bang for their buck. The overall problem I see time and… -
SEO Clients: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and Umm… 2 More
14 Apr 2009 | 3:44 pmIn an ideal world, clients would hire an SEO agency and actually follow the direction from that agency. Sadly, this is often not the case. In fact, with large companies, like the ones I've been working with for years, I sometimes wonder if there'd be any difference if they just cut a check and went a away for twelve months. OK, so I'm exaggerating, but it does seem like there's a disproportionate amount of wheel spinning in place of actual progress with some projects. What's more, it seems like the client, during the pitch process, gave plenty of clues about what type… -
WordPress Plugin Reveals a Black Hat's Network
8 Apr 2009 | 12:37 pmA while back John Andrews wrote a post about trusting WordPress plugins and how that really isn't such a good idea. I agree with everything John wrote, but up until today I hadn't come across a plugin that actually did anything that "crossed the line". The plugin that I've been digging into has code that randomly determines whether to inject a link into the outputted text. Not only is the insertion frequency dynamic, but so is the link that is injected. That is, the link is pulled from a web site that when queried, spits out a different link. A nice automated link…
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John W Ellis
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Social Media Club Nashville talks nonprofit
27 Jun 2009 | 8:26 amOn Wednesday, July 15, Social Media Club Nashville will once again meet-up to discuss communication and technology. This event’s focus will be on nonprofit. Panelist from several Nashville area communities and nonprofit agencies will open up on their strategies and hurdles with social media. The panel consists of representatives from Cool People Care, Center for Nonprofit Management, Nashville Zoo, and the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee This Nashville nonprofit discussion will take place at Nonprofit Management in Metro Center, from 6pm – 8pm, on Wednesday July 15th This Social… -
Bing is missing the point. It’s not the destination.
8 Jun 2009 | 11:29 amMicrosoft’s Bing is the latest so-called “Google Killer” to hit the Twitter trends buzz. There was also recent push at SMX Advanced that Chris Smith discusses on SemClubHouse.com. No doubt there is a strong marketing effort by Microsoft to get people talking about Bing. In that sense, it was, and is a successful marketing campaign. But will “buzz” be enough? The Bing commercials follow two themes: “Search Overload” and “Decision Engine”. The problems with these themes are they seem to indicate that users are frustrated by Google and the overloading. The search overload… -
Social Media Club Nashville launches Tuesday
18 May 2009 | 12:20 pmSocial Media Club Nashville hosts its first meeting on Tuesday, May 19th from 6pm to 8pm at Aloft Hotel in Cool Springs. The goal of Social Media Clubs are to organize people and events for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media. The event will consist of a panel discussion on social media within Nashville’s online community. The panel will include Ben Lehman, Web Marketer at Healthways; Jared Degnan, Interactive Marketing Consultant for Mars Petcare; Dave Delaney, Social Media… -
Hendersonville Geek Breakfast
12 May 2009 | 11:41 amThe next Hendersonville Geek Breakfast will this Thursday, May 14 at 7:30am. This event will be at Mimi’s Café. We would love for you to join us. A Geek Breakfast is a monthly community-driven meeting for local (and visiting) technology-minded people. Each month attendees congregate over bacon, eggs and plenty of coffee to discuss topics like social media, digital marketing, design, programming, and ways to better their communities. source: http://geekbreakfast.org The Hendersonville Geek Breakfast is a “spin off” of the well established Nashville Geek Breakfast. Everyone is welcome. -
Broad Match is giving me a headache
7 Apr 2009 | 8:09 amActually, it’s not even broad match anymore, it’s “Advanced Match”. The original broad match worked well. However, “Advanced Match” has declined in performance over the past several months. A Brief Introduction Google has four keyword matching options that can trigger a pay-per-click ad. Those match types are: Broad, Phrase, Exact, and Negative. For the purpose of this discussion, we will exclude negative match type. That is a totally different conversation, but still very essential for a well optimized campaign. Per Google’s definition, below are the other 3 match types: Broad…
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KOMARKETING ASSOCIATES: SEM BLOG
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Bing Bringing Real Time Twitter Data Into Search Results
2 Jul 2009 | 6:13 amLast night I read via Search Engine Land of Bing’s announcement that they are beginning to integrate real time data into search results. Starting with some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers (“a few thousand people to start, based primarily on their follower count and volume of tweets”), Bing users will be able to search names in association with Twitter to see their latest Tweets come up in real time. Example of Kara Swisher’s twitterstream in search results: While it will be interesting to see how this initial phase of development is received by users,… -
Five Ways to Identify Twitter Spam Before It Invades Your Twitterstream
26 Jun 2009 | 8:41 amAs the adoption of Twitter rapidly grows, so does the volume of spam, malware and overall “noise” in the network. Twitter’s development of verified accounts might be a first step to combating fraud but it certainly will not be the last. Search Engine Land detailed two more examples of this growing problem as it pertains to trending spam and misleading profiles. Not everyone following you on Twitter is truly there to be your “friend”. Beyond Twitter basics, here are five ways that I use for identifying potentially questionable accounts and Twitter spam. Check… -
3 Things I Love About the New AdWords Interface
22 Jun 2009 | 1:35 pmGoogle has allowed us to use its new interface for a long enough period of time for me to begin forming opinions about it. I’ve listed below three of my favorite updates that are included in the new AdWords interface. Better Access to Your Content Network Sites The new interface has streamlined the site exclusion process for us! Not only that, but we can view the performance of all of the site we hand pick (via placements) as well as all of the automatic placements that are paired to us through the content network. This easily gives us the ability to view the success of different… -
Get Real With Regional PPC Targeting
15 Jun 2009 | 8:47 amWhile I remain mixed on how I feel about Google’s new AdWords interface, there is one cool feature that I have been taking full advantage of - viewing “real” search terms that bring traffic via PPC. When you select “See search terms” you are presented with search queries that triggered your ads and brought visitors to your site via the ads. This data has long been available through the Reports in Google AdWords, but the new interface brings the data right to your fingertips - all in one place for a particular Ad Group, a set of Ad groups within a Campaign, or… -
Facebook Commands 13.9 Billion Minutes of Our Attention
8 Jun 2009 | 5:23 amMarket researcher Nielsen Online (PDF) reports that the time online users spent on Facebook in April is up 700% year over year. The U.S. spent 13.9 BILLION minutes on Facebook in April 2009 alone and over 20 billion minutes were spent on social networking sites altogether. Although it is important to adopt a range of social media platforms, Facebook’s command on the online user’s attention is certainly eye opening. Even growing networks such as Twitter and Tagged only have a fraction of the comparable attention. In other words, while it is imperative to reach your market in the…
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MOREVISIBILITY: SEM BLOG
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Google Analytics Goals Can Be Imported Into AdWords
29 Jun 2009 | 7:11 amAdWords users know that Google offers conversion tracking; however one limitation has been that this conversion tracking did not distinguish between certain types of conversions. For example, if you had 2 offers, newsletter sign up and contact us form, AdWords conversion tracking could not determine which action was taken. In order to see this, you [...] -
Are You Seeing A Dip In Traffic?
26 Jun 2009 | 7:49 amFor many advertisers who run a search engine marketing campaign, it is very common to get comfortable with a certain amount of visitors. Over the life of a campaign, advertisers may notice trends in regard to their paid efforts. But, what should an advertiser do when the amount of paid traffic to the site begins to [...] -
People See That I’m #1, but They Aren’t Clicking
22 Jun 2009 | 6:14 amIn the world of search engine marketing companies work to get the most bang for their buck. Many setup their accounts with keywords, ad copy and cpc bids and they are off to the races. The difficult part comes once a campaign has been running for a while. How do you analyze the data and [...] -
Matching Your Pay-per-Click Campaigns and Your Website
19 Jun 2009 | 7:39 amNo matter how developed and well managed a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign is, your website (or landing page) must match the message and value proposition associated with that campaign. You can drive the most targeted visitors possible through a strong PPC campaign but if your website cannot deliver on the message from the PPC ads, you [...] -
Changes to Google’s Trademark Policy
15 Jun 2009 | 7:54 amGoogle now allows certain trademark terms to be used in ad copy for sponsored listings, even if you do not own the trademark. In the past, trademark terms were allowed only as keywords and but not in the ad copy. Ads previously were disapproved if they were found to violate the policy relating to the [...]
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Reel SEO Video Marketing
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Digital Agencies and Client Challenges with Video – CIMA Recap
3 Jul 2009 | 8:28 amI recently covered the Chicago Interactive Marketing Associations’ panel discussion – Creative, Technology, Media, and Analytics. The panelists of senior industry leaders debated on how creative, technology, media & analytics are converging more in interactive video marketing; and how agencies can overcome the limitations of video measurement towards client buy-in. The CIMA Interview For some background, The Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA) largely consists of marketers on the agency side (including creative, technology, and media agencies) who gravitate heavily… -
Joost Reinvents Service as Brandable Video Platform
1 Jul 2009 | 6:20 pmJoost was what the creators of Skype went on to after it was sold. They’ve recently announced a new focus for the company, mainly they want to be a white box video platform and they’re working toward that goal now. The new Joost will seek to allow media companies to create a branded video sharing presence for themselves. It seems that Joost wasn’t doing so well as a consumer-facing product, competing directly with YouTube, and so they’ve moved their aim at bigger potential clients. Meanwhile Hulu has taken the lead for high quality broadcast TV video online. Mike… -
Youtube Doubles Upload File Size Limit – More HD
1 Jul 2009 | 6:05 pmDamn it is hard to keep up with all the changes that Youtube has been launching. This is one that Im certain you will all be thrilled to hear about, because it means more HD. In addition to the doubling of upload file size from 1GB to 2 GB, they have also implemented some new features which will make it easier for you to share HD videos. The changes will allow users to share links directly to the HD version of videos, as well as to embed the HD version with ease. Many of you may have known about how to do this previously, as it was possible. However, they have now publicly made these… -
YouTube Adds Call-to-Action Overlays – Drive Action off YouTube
1 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pmYou want to measure impact on retail sales of your product for your online video campaign on YouTube? Well now they’re helping you do that with a new overlay that can even help drive that impact deeper into your business and allow you to link off-site. We always talk about online video campaign ROI and how difficult it is to actually determine it and how to do it accurately. Well now YouTube might have added a new feature that will help us do exactly that. The new call-to-action overlay will help you track how many users move forward with some sort of transaction whether a sale,… -
Open Source Video Projects – Participatory Culture Foundation
1 Jul 2009 | 9:00 amThe Participatory Culture Foundation has been hard at work building up several services that make great use of online video. As such we at ReelSEO thought it was time that we took a look at them to see how they’re doing. The PCF is a non-profit organization that wants to build a new open mass medium platform that’s simple and easy to use. Two projects – Miro and Make Internet TV are already up and running so I’ve decided to take a look into each and let you know what they’re all about and how they’re going along. Make Internet TV The Make Internet TV project…
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SEM Insights
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Search Optimization: Still Misunderstood & Under-utilized?
1 Jul 2009 | 8:22 pmI think so, to both. This is a quick study of why I do… SEO is Misunderstood Background Search engine optimization (SEO) is a term that was coined in July 1997, where it was used publicly in what was perceived to be a spam message, hardly an auspicious beginning. Over the years, the term ‘search engine optimization’ has become synonymous in the eyes of the general public with spamming techniques, and with the deliberate manipulation of the SERPs (search engine results pages) to reflect less than optimal results via ‘black-hat’ or spamdexing techniques. Regardless, the SEO… -
Web Content & Search Optimisation…………. NOT Mutually Exclusive
16 Jun 2009 | 8:20 pmOptimised content can be a vague concept. Defining ‘for whom’ we are optimising the content, along with ‘why’, is a critical part of the overall deliverable objective of a comprehensive web content strategy. Optimising web content for both human users and search engine spiders should not be a mutually exclusive endeavour; at its most basic content should be, and needs to be, optimised for: human users - ensuring topical relevance, clarity and usability, and spiders - ensuring topical relevance, ease of discovery and crawlability. It is an undisputed fact that on the web, ‘content is… -
SEO Tools (and more) for Newbies
22 May 2009 | 7:33 pmA new colleague and I were sharing favourite tools the other day (12 most were in common), and it got me to thinking about how I wished I’d known more about the range of newbie free tools out there - and what they did - when I first started out. I’m NOT including keyword research tools as those have been done to death. These are more strategic, hopefully more insightful tools, to help you move forward with your SEO initiatives. Some tools have changed, and some are newer than my SEO age (mum’s the word) but as the landscape has changed, I will include them anyway if they are relevant… -
VOC, UGC & SEO - Work it baby! (’cuz it really does work…)
12 May 2009 | 7:23 pmUGC (user generated content) is fast becoming more and more important to the success of online retailers, and to businesses that rely on their website to drive brand exposure and generate contacts. Which forms of UGC to leverage, why, where and how can be a challenge to even the most professional marketing team. Please read more about UGC and SEO here. VOC (voice of customer) is another part of the same puzzle. Traditionally: “…[VOC] is a market research technique that produces a detailed set of customer wants and needs, organized into a hierarchical structure, and then prioritized in… -
Voice of Customer - Listen, Change and Win!
7 May 2009 | 7:51 pmOne of my fantastically (scarily really) talented colleagues, Lance Jonespresented at eMetrics in San Jose yesterday. The topic covered was how VOC (voice of customer) changed the Intuit QuickTax home page for the better during the last few weeks of our Canadian tax season. QuickTax is the Canadian version of TurboTax just if you were wondering, so the site gets MASSIVE traffic over tax season. The process that this went through consists of far more than I can do justice to here, but I wanted to share some really cool learnings with you all. First: If you have a home page, don’t be…
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SEMClubHouse - Key Relevance Blog
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Optimize Your Search Engine Listing for Improved CTR
16 Jun 2009 | 6:26 amby Chris Silver Smith Earlier this month when I spoke at SMX Advanced on the topic of “Beyond the Usual Link Building”, one of the suggestions I made in the presentation was about how to improve how your listings appear within the search engine results. There are a lot of people I’ve met who tend to be hyperfocused on whether their pages rank, and don’t spend as much attention on how those pages’ entries appear within the search results pages. It seems like common sense that if the entry looks like what a user is seeking, they’d be more likely to click upon… -
Bing Search Engine Launch & SMX Advanced Conference
3 Jun 2009 | 11:21 amby Chris Silver Smith Christine Churchill and I from KeyRelevance are attending this year’s SMX Advanced in Seattle where Microsoft has really pushed to promote their new search engine vision, Bing. Microsoft officially launched Bing (tagline “The Sound of Found”) this week, with a number of promotional spots intended to coincide with SMX Advanced to take advantage of the presence of so many search-industry wags who blog and the influential search marketers attend the conference. Microsoft’s reportedly intending to spend over $100 million in advertising and marketing… -
Why Use Microformats?
19 May 2009 | 6:17 amby Chris Silver Smith I’ve written numerous times about how and why to code Microformats into the webpages of local businesses (see here, here and here), yet the question keeps coming up — “Should I spend the time and effort on integrating Microformats into my site’s pages?” Just during the past couple of weeks, the question has arisen yet again, and along with it there was an additional development which further emphasizes why it’s a good thing and why webmasters should be incorporating the protocol sooner than later. More on this in a minute. I believe I… -
Special Characters Are Lucky Charms For Twitter ♥ ☾ ★ ♣
12 May 2009 | 6:30 amby Chris Silver Smith As you surf the flow of Tweets running through the ever-heating-up medium of Twitter, you can frequently see an unusual little character icon or two used to decorate people’s postings. I’ve taken note of these over time, and I suspect that using these little graphic icons can sometimes increase the ability or a particular Tweet to stand out from the crowd. If you use Twitter to promote links to your blog articles and webpages, you might consider adding these special icons to your repertoire. I think these special characters can be Lucky Charms for your… -
Your Audience & Customers Define the Value
7 May 2009 | 5:00 amBy Liana “Li” Evans When it comes to traditional marketing, companies are so entrenched in having to define their value statements, and defining them in their marketing messages they don’t even realize that with today’s new technologies and mediums to communicate in, it’s really the customers who are defining what the value is of their products. While company executives are so focused on “features” providing what they perceive is value, they never stop and think about what the person who is plunking down their hard earned dollars to buy the product or service truly…
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The Invesp Blog
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Internet Marketing Simplified
1 Jul 2009 | 5:19 amIt can be frustrating for people who want to grow their business using online techniques. Everything seems so complicated. You do not just have the marketing stuff, which seems a weird combination of creativity and psychology, art and science (along with a large dose of good luck). Then there is all the technical stuff, like emails, websites and advertising. In fact the technical stuff is largely a commodity now, outsource it to a reliable contractor and all you need is the marketing approach. Thankfully at its core this can be really simple. If you have done any reading at all about… -
Is the Customer Always Right?
24 Jun 2009 | 8:58 amWhen we get around to any discussion about customer service, and in particular customer satisfaction, a phrase is almost guaranteed to come up: The customer is always right But is that really true? Before you answer, check out this YouTube video: According to a Google search, the phrase was coined by a certain Mr Harry Gordon Selfridge of the department store fame. It is one of those phrases that is used by people who mean it literally, while the likely intent was probably not as cut and dried. Yes, customer support staff should aim to please, that the company should be guaranteed to fix any… -
IRCE 2009 at a glance
18 Jun 2009 | 11:13 amThe IRCE 2009 was bustling with etailers and vendors alike, although the majority of people we spoke to felt that the numbers were significantly lower than previous years. Khalid and I arrived in Boston late Sunday evening and rushed our way down to the exhibit hall Monday morning to set up and then up to the ecommerce workshops to consult with online retailers. It was a busy Monday morning, and the entire stay was eventful and quite eye-opening. Khalid and I both felt that the retailers sitting at our tables during the website consultations were engaged and interested. Website clinics are… -
Getting Really Sick of the Offer Bait and Switch
17 Jun 2009 | 3:12 amI am sure you have experienced this or know someone close who has. You see an offer, think it is exactly what you are looking for, and try to grab it while the deal is hot, only to be told “Sorry, we just sold the last one but we have this more expensive and less desirable option …”. We experienced it just today. There was a flight we found ideal for everything we needed for our winter vacation. It had the right stop over, and even the plane I wanted to fly on (the new Airbus A380!). As we saw that flights were being picked off fast, and the price was going up like a rocket,… -
Are You Investing in Your Business or Sucking it Dry?
12 Jun 2009 | 3:43 amWhen was the last time you invested in your business? Have you scaled back your investment recently, or increased it? Are you updating your knowledge and skills, or hoping that the expertise you have gained previously will see you through industry changes now and in the future? One of the challenges for social media evangelists is balancing the benefits with a healthy dose of reality. Many businesses are turning to social media not because they believe it is more effective than some other approaches to lead generation, but because they have heard that it is cheap or free. This is a worry for…
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Businessethos.com
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Twitter Launches Verified Accounts
12 Jun 2009 | 1:44 pmNeed To Be #TwitterVerified? Adios Imposters! Twitter is experimenting (beta testing) a new way toverify Twitter accountsThe new ‘Verified Account’ feature will be identified with this verified badge , indicating the account is indeed authentic. (This does not mean Twitter has verified who is writing the tweets.) According to Twitter, the goal is to prevent identity confusion andto help those who deal with impersonation or identity confusion on a regular basis establish authenticity on Twitter. This is great news for well-known individuals and organizations. Keep in… -
Free e-book: How To Use Facebook for Business
3 Jun 2009 | 8:44 amLearn How To Use Facebook For Business Hubspot’s Ellie Mirman posted an awesome 22 page social media business guide for FacebookThe guide has three parts: Introduction to Facebook, “How To” set up a Facebook Profile and “How To” use Facebook for business. We doubt if you’ll have many Facebook questions left after this…but if you do, send us an email or a tweet! Posted in Strategy Tagged: Ellie Mirman, Facebook business Guide, Facebook for Buisness, HubSpot, Mike Volpe, social media business guide -
Desiderata, Essential Things and Your Ethos
27 May 2009 | 10:35 amTimeless Ethos Poem Poetry, like music, has the ability to touch souls and bring people together. In 1927 Max Ehrmann wrote Desiderata- an epic ethos poem. Broaden your ethos… More on Max Ehrmann Posted in Strategy Tagged: ethos poem, Max Ehrmann -
VideoPress, Elegant Videos from WordPress
16 May 2009 | 7:01 pmIt’s no secret …we strongly recommend using WordPress to publish personal and business blogs. Whenever WordPress rolls out a new feature or upgrade…it’s kind of a big deal. A few days ago WordPress announced a gorgeous new upgrade, VideoPress. Inspired byother high quality video solutions, VideoPress isan elegant, online video space to upload videos to embed and share video on your blog (and other websites). After you upload your videos,VideoPress will “crunch it” to DVD, HD and formats optimized for iTunes and Miro. Let your eyes be the judge. Posted… -
Presentio: Simplified Real-Time Private Collaboration
16 May 2009 | 8:35 amPresent.io, a beta service of drop.io makes real-time online presentations private and simple! This new real-time social solution makes in possible to present more than just documents online using a browser (e.g., present video, photos, audio) to one or more viewers. While Present.io’s sleek look may grab your attention first…we think the powerful real-time collaboration features is what is most attractive. You can also chat or use a free conference call line to take online presentations to the next level. Present.io has made it easy for professionals to engage online; we…
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ASK Enquiro - SEM News
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The New Metrics of Fame
2 Jul 2009 | 12:07 pm“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Andy Warhol, 1968 When Warhol made his oft-quoted prediction, he was referring to the ability of media to push anyone into the bright glare of the spotlight for a fleeting brush with celebrity. What he couldn’t have anticipated was the strange twist the web would throw on that. The web democratized media and accelerated Warhol’s prediction. Viral fame doesn’t depend on tightly controlled channels like newspapers and TV networks, it seeps, oozes and sometimes gushes, propelled by users. All of us, including middle… -
Inside the Mind of the Searcher Five Years Later
29 Jun 2009 | 12:05 pmOriginal Post: Inside the Mind of the Search 5 Years Later - courtesy of Marketing Jive It has been a little over five years since we at Enquiro, released our first white paper, Inside the Mind of the Searcher. The paper has been recognized as ground breaking research by many industry experts, including Danny Sullivan Search Engine Land and Anne Holland, founder of MarketingSherpa. The 30 page report discovered some startling findings about the way consumers search. Some of the items that we concluded from our research was that it became clear that searchers have mentally divided the search… -
Grandma via YouTube
25 Jun 2009 | 9:49 amThis week we had a webinar on Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives. We showed brain scanning images, survey results and the work of Marc Prensky, Gary Small and other researchers, showing how technology has created a generational divide between our kids and us. But for me, it all came into sharper focus for me when I walked past our computer at home and saw my youngest daughter, Lauren, sitting there with crochet hooks in hand. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Learning to crochet.” “On the computer?” “Yes, there’s a video showing how on YouTube.” “Really?” “Yes Dad,… -
A Couple of Quick SEO Reminders for E-Commerce Sites
23 Jun 2009 | 3:36 pmI am a big advocate of SEO 101. A lot of people these days are all about Web 2.0 or Web 3.0 and it shows. Have you seen some of the "crap" that is on the Web these days? Sure it might be flashy and fancy… from a design point of view, but quite often, it sure does not help with the user experience or with the ability to find relevant results in a given search engine. I guess by title, I am an organic search strategist. I focus on SEO initiatives to help my clients intercept their target audience. I help them provide content that is useful,… -
Long Articles – Another Canonical Tag Use
22 Jun 2009 | 4:43 pmThe canonical tag has a lot of applications, and one of them is helping to simplify duplicate content issues. One of these situations frequently occurs with long pieces of content which have been broken out over several pages to improve usability. This is common for content publishers such as newpapers, but also happens with other types of sites. It’s common to use pagination links such as these ones (from Lester Chan’s WP-Pagenavi plugin) to help users and engines find the rest of your article. One great B2B content development strategy can be publishing transcripts of…
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PPC Management & SEO - The Wpromoter
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Viral Video Friday!
2 Jul 2009 | 3:55 pmIt’s not actually Friday but it feels like a Friday today (3 day holiday weekends will do that). Therefore, we’re going to make today Viral Video Friday! It’s been nearly a week since the passing of Michael Jackson and we still can’t believe the news. To honor his musical legacy, this week’s Viral Video Friday is dedicated to the King of Pop himself, may he rest in peace. Thriller Thriller - Music VideoUploaded by dreadcentral. - Full seasons and entire episodes online. Man in the Mirror Michael Jacksons Man In The MirrorUploaded by Okdude81. - Music videos,… -
8 Things You Aren’t Doing…
2 Jul 2009 | 9:20 amTo Boost Your SEM Results - Webinar Follow-up Thank you everyone who attended our SEM webinar earlier this week. We enjoyed all of your questions and feedback! Will be hosting the same webinar later this summer on August 27, 11 AM PDT, register here. All future webinars can be found anytime at www.wpromote.com. To view the slides from the presentation please click here. Also, if you would like a written summary of the presentation we have a previous blog post that does just that! We look forward to seeing you at upcoming webinars. Save this Post! -
Tues News: 6/30 (Google vs. Everyone Edition)
30 Jun 2009 | 12:59 pmI hope nobody comes after Google with a shovel like they did Homestar! Sometimes, it seems like the world is against you. It might be that you’re just having a bad day or it might be that you’re just being paranoid. Of course, in rare circumstances, the world actually is against you and that certainly seems to be the case with Google this past week. It’s no secret that Google is a really, really powerful company. They got this way by being the smartest, most driven business in the United States and serving the public with a great product at the right time with careful… -
IRCE Recap
29 Jun 2009 | 2:42 pmView of the showroom floor at IRCE 2009 This month, the Wpromote team made its first appearance as an exhibitor at Internet Retailer Conference & Expo in Boston, MA. IRCE is an annual show attended by the largest e-commerce retailers around the world and we were very excited to get a place as an exhibitor this year. The first full day of the show did not have the high volume of foot traffic we were looking for, but day two seemed to be much busier on the show floor. In the end, we decided that this was an extremely beneficial show for meeting potential clients and partners as well as… -
Viral Video Friday!
26 Jun 2009 | 7:09 amLet’s take a moment and honor the King of Pop. In lieu of an actual Michael Jackson video to honor him today (YouTube disabled embed codes of all MJ’s videos) we’ll start this week’s Viral Video Friday with a classic viral video using Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Thriller (CPDRC Edition) Kid Playing with Ice Cream He’s Barack Obama Making of Buzz Aldrin’s Rocket Experience w/ Snoop Dogg and Talib Kweli Making of Buzz Aldrin’s Rocket Experience w/ Snoop Dogg and Talib Kweli from Buzz Aldrin Mom Deletes World of Warcraft Addicts Account Quick…
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eBay, ecommerce, life
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Links for 2009-06-18 [del.icio.us]
19 Jun 2009 | 12:00 amAddThis - Social Bookmark & Feed Button Builder -
10 Lessons for life from Will Wynne of Arena Flowers
16 Jun 2009 | 11:57 amI am a great fan of The Fog of War, a documentary where Robert McNamara (JFK’s Defence Secretary) gives 11 lessons from his long life. I thought I would like to try and emulate this documentary in my own small way with a series of posts where people give their lessons for life. My first subject is Will Wynne from Arena Flowers. Will is the only person I know who has a tribute twitter account as well as a real one. Take it away Will: When Trevor asked me to write up a guest post I figured that I’d try to do something a little different. So I decided to write a list not… -
Interview with Paul Fisher from Niggle
11 Jun 2009 | 1:11 pmIn my adventures in online reputation I came across Niggle, a new way for businesses to get feedback from their customers. As I didn’t give them many column inches before, I caught up with Paul Fisher to get the whole story. Could you give us some background on Niggle please. How’s it going? Niggle’s primary aim is to make it easy and convenient for customers to send feedback to businesses, and to help businesses deal with that feedback in a way that improves their business and bottom line. The seed of the idea stems from my days as a restaurant owner, when I was totally… -
Nudges and Credit Card Processing
3 Jun 2009 | 2:46 pmI have recently finished reading Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. The book suggest strategies for enabling humans to make decisions which are in their interest, such as giving up smoking or saving more, given human shortcomings. The word humans here is important, as humans are lazy and have inbuilt reasoning biases. They many not always act in their own interest. The book talks a lot about decision architecture, that is how to construct a decision making process to enable people to make the more appropiate choice. How choices are presented will, to a great extent, determine… -
In Praise of Toy Shop UK
24 May 2009 | 11:52 amIn my experience very few directories have the potential to drive any kind of traffic and this includes services like Yell and Scoot. (In fact, rather embarrissingly I once bought an entry on Scoot. The entry produced so little traffic (one hit per month) that I wrote to Michael Grade and got my money back). Scouring the web for links produces no end of sites that want £10 or so for a listing. It is rarely worth it. Most directories are also of very limited use to consumers, giving very limited informations about their entries (i.e. they are for SEO purposes only which is fine, as…
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Reel SEO Video Marketing
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Digital Agencies and Client Challenges with Video – CIMA Recap
3 Jul 2009 | 8:28 amI recently covered the Chicago Interactive Marketing Associations’ panel discussion – Creative, Technology, Media, and Analytics. The panelists of senior industry leaders debated on how creative, technology, media & analytics are converging more in interactive video marketing; and how agencies can overcome the limitations of video measurement towards client buy-in. The CIMA Interview For some background, The Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA) largely consists of marketers on the agency side (including creative, technology, and media agencies) who gravitate heavily… -
Joost Reinvents Service as Brandable Video Platform
1 Jul 2009 | 6:20 pmJoost was what the creators of Skype went on to after it was sold. They’ve recently announced a new focus for the company, mainly they want to be a white box video platform and they’re working toward that goal now. The new Joost will seek to allow media companies to create a branded video sharing presence for themselves. It seems that Joost wasn’t doing so well as a consumer-facing product, competing directly with YouTube, and so they’ve moved their aim at bigger potential clients. Meanwhile Hulu has taken the lead for high quality broadcast TV video online. Mike… -
Youtube Doubles Upload File Size Limit – More HD
1 Jul 2009 | 6:05 pmDamn it is hard to keep up with all the changes that Youtube has been launching. This is one that Im certain you will all be thrilled to hear about, because it means more HD. In addition to the doubling of upload file size from 1GB to 2 GB, they have also implemented some new features which will make it easier for you to share HD videos. The changes will allow users to share links directly to the HD version of videos, as well as to embed the HD version with ease. Many of you may have known about how to do this previously, as it was possible. However, they have now publicly made these… -
YouTube Adds Call-to-Action Overlays – Drive Action off YouTube
1 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pmYou want to measure impact on retail sales of your product for your online video campaign on YouTube? Well now they’re helping you do that with a new overlay that can even help drive that impact deeper into your business and allow you to link off-site. We always talk about online video campaign ROI and how difficult it is to actually determine it and how to do it accurately. Well now YouTube might have added a new feature that will help us do exactly that. The new call-to-action overlay will help you track how many users move forward with some sort of transaction whether a sale,… -
Open Source Video Projects – Participatory Culture Foundation
1 Jul 2009 | 9:00 amThe Participatory Culture Foundation has been hard at work building up several services that make great use of online video. As such we at ReelSEO thought it was time that we took a look at them to see how they’re doing. The PCF is a non-profit organization that wants to build a new open mass medium platform that’s simple and easy to use. Two projects – Miro and Make Internet TV are already up and running so I’ve decided to take a look into each and let you know what they’re all about and how they’re going along. Make Internet TV The Make Internet TV project…
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Content Rich
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Social Media Content – It’s Just the Beginning
30 Jun 2009 | 4:10 pmIt seems like with every blog I frequent, the topics covered have morphed into a social media cornucopia of delights. The topic used to just be “social media” …now it’s subdivided and multiplied into a number of sub-topics within the larger umbrella. From video marketing and distribution to Social media tools; social media training and advertising to integrating social media and traditional media, the list is endless. And despite all of this activity and buzz, there are many thousands of companies out there – large and small that are still resisting it. Why? Because… -
Content Can Live Forever Online
11 Jun 2009 | 1:41 pmSo tell me, have you ever Googled your name? Come on, I know you have. Who doesn’t? It can be pretty interesting and even entertaining to see what’s out there – both what you have authored and what others are saying about you… both the informed and uninformed. And as I recently made another cruise through the pages that donned my name, I was reminded of something very important: Content can live forever on the Internet. This is a critical piece of information, especially for those who are new to the web and haven’t practiced restraint when they have decided to spout their… -
Double the Size of your Business with Pay Per Click Advertising
26 May 2009 | 2:53 pmBy Guest Blogger: David Chapman Before the Internet came along, one of the most time consuming and expensive tasks of any marketer was trying to get in front of the right target market. Who exactly is interested in buying our products? Who could use our services? Companies the world over did everything they could, but it was still a very inefficient process. Print ad campaigns were run, but would only mean something to 10% of those that saw it. And you didn’t know who they were or how to follow up with them. Direct mail campaigns were sent, but only 2% or less of the people that got these… -
SEO Copywriting: Why Do Some People Think it’s So Cool to Downplay its Importance?
5 May 2009 | 4:41 pmI don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of something I have been reading for a while now. It pops up in various blogs, articles and even at important trade shows like Search Engine Strategies. And I know people naturally want to promote “the new stuff” and be seen as a trailblazer or hot researcher or even as a plain and simple contrarian, but the continuing comments re. SEO not being as important as it was… or that it’s not important at all, is bad information. And it’s actually doing people a disservice. The final straw for me is when I read this post in Copyblogger… -
A Post For Those Who Don’t Read Blog Posts – Online Marketing & Your Website 101
28 Apr 2009 | 6:02 pmI know, a little confusing right? A post for those who dont read blog posts? Well look, here is the deal. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: There are a ton of businesses out there that are very challenged when it comes to their website and using it as a tool in their marketing arsenal. I have made it my mission to not simply help those companies that come to me and know they need help, but to reach out, be a little evangelical and find those companies that are way behind the times and don’t know how much they can benefit. Why? One, you can make a big impact, very quickly and…
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Internet Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
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AHHH I got a Negative Review - What do I do???
25 Jun 2009 | 6:24 pmA Negative Review on Google According to Matt McGee from Small Business Search Marketing, getting a negative review posted about your business is not the end of the world. He states “We don’t live in a 5-star world. Think about it: Even your favorite restaurant messes up sometimes”. I would have to agree. Here are a few ways that negative reviews can actually help your business: 1. It can make the reviews look more realistic - Sometimes, if your business has ALL 5-star reviews, it can almost look fake. It wouldn’t hurt to have the odd 3-star, or 4-star rating… -
Should a Small Business have Video on its Website?
11 Jun 2009 | 8:06 amShould your website include video? A lot of small business owners debate whether or not they need video on their websites. On one hand, it looks pretty cool, and some would argue that it makes it easier to communicate a specific point. However, I currently agree with Steve Rubel in his article titled “Why Text Remains King of the Web“. He points out that text is good for these 5 reasons: “1. Text is scannable – according to Jakob Nielsen users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average site visit and 20% is more likely” This is very true because I recently had… -
13 Ways to Avoid Getting Scammed by an Online Company
26 May 2009 | 1:52 pmTechnorati Profile 13 Ways to Avoid Getting Scammed by an Online Company Unfortunately, recently I have been hearing a lot of small business owners complain about online companies that have ripped them off in the past. Some experiences involve companies taking their money when they sign up and not delivering what was promised. Others involve the company simply “disappearing” after the customer signs up without delivering the service paid for. It is my goal to educate small business owners so that they can avoid these situations from happening in the future. There are a lot of… -
Advertising Online to the Hispanic Market (part 2 of 2)
17 May 2009 | 4:21 pmOur previous post, Advertising Online to the Hispanic Market part 1 of 2 covered why a small business should target Hispanics in their local advertising. Now that it’s clear that Hispanics should be targeted, there are many questions that business owners have when it comes to HOW to target them. Should my Ads be in English or Spanish? According to an Ipsos Omnibus Poll done in 2008, 56% of Hispanics prefer an English language newspaper and 41% prefer a Spanish language one. A lot of Hispanics these days don’t have a strong preference for one language over another. Because they… -
Advertising Online to the Hispanic Market (part 1 of 2)
4 May 2009 | 3:06 pmWhy should I target Hispanics? Hispanics are becoming a huge, growing minority in the US. According to JupiterResearch, 31.5 million US Hispanics are currently online in 2009. Comscore reported that in February 2009, Hispanics accounted for 11% of the total U.S. Online market. Also, another interesting fact is that the amount of time spent online by Hispanics is growing at a speed that is almost 4 times greater than the speed of the USA as a whole. The average Hispanic spends 52% of his media consumption online (approximately 14 hours a week) according to eMarketer. Areas in the USA…
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Search Marketing : Darin Carter
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7Search.com Launches “Crazy Monday” Cash Give-Away Promotion for New Advertisers in July
29 Jun 2009 | 12:56 pmDES PLAINES, IL – 7Search.com, a leading pay-per-click search engine and advertising network, will hold a weekly drawing to give one new advertiser a $250 Visa Gift Card each Monday in July. To be eligible for the Crazy Monday cash give-away promotion, new 7Search.com advertisers must make a deposit and activate the campaign account the week before the Monday drawing. For example, to be eligible for the drawing on July 6, advertisers must make a deposit between June 29 and July 5. When registering, advertisers must enter the promo code CASHCOW to be eligible for the promotion. The winner of… -
John Chow Makes $684 Dollars a Hour Blogging
25 Jun 2009 | 6:50 amThis is a GREAT Video for you to watch if your interested in learning how John Chow will make $500,000 this year on JohnChow.Com! So at 365 Days A Year, 2 Hours a Day thats 730 Hours. Now take $500,000 / 730 = $684/hr I recommend you grab a drink, a bite to eat and pull up a chair because you’re going to want to watch this from beginning to end. http://www.johnchow.ca/how-i-make-40000-a-month-from-a-blog/ Darin Carter Start A Business with Darin.Biz » Post Purchase: Inline Ad Post From: Search Engine Marketing : Darin Carter John Chow Makes $684 Dollars a Hour Blogging -
Universal Domain Group
23 Jun 2009 | 7:45 amI have been MIA for a few and I wanted to let my readers know what I have been up to. I have started a New Company called Universal Domain Group. Unlike some of my other Companies, Universal Domain Group is focused on only 3 things, Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click Management, Reputation Management. If your ever in need of these 3 areas of expertise, don’t hessitate to give us a call and one of our staff members will be more than glad to assist you. I think you will be suprised with what we can do to assist you in your marketing needs! Darin Carter Search Engine Marketing Job… -
Microsoft Bing a Hit
8 Jun 2009 | 1:55 pmHere’s a Great Article from CNet. Everyone is ranting and raving about Bing these last few days, however is it really a hit? Microsoft’s new Bing search engine has received positive reviews in its first week on the planet, but did that early buzz translate into traffic? A report from Statcounter picked up by TechCrunch suggested that Bing’s debut was successful enough to eclipse Yahoo Search during its first week, but subsequent analysis from Search Engine Land as well as data from CNET’s network of sites suggests otherwise. Statcounter, a Web traffic tracking company,… -
Bing Launches
2 Jun 2009 | 6:22 amWhat is Bing? Put simply, Bing is a decision engine that offers consumers a way to make informed choices fast. From shopping and travel to healthcare, local and more, Bing delivers great results in a rich, well-organized experience to help consumers easily accomplish key tasks. Bing offers consumers a way to make faster, more informed decisions. From shopping and travel to health, local and more, Bing delivers great results in a rich, well-organized experience to help consumers easily accomplish key tasks. Find out more about the Bing consumer experience on the Behind Bing site, or follow us…
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PPC Blog
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Big Geo Problems Still Exist In Google UK SERPS
17 Jun 2009 | 2:50 pmIt was back at the start of June that a number of SEOs spotted a change in the Google UK search results where by US sites seemed to be ranking unusually high for queries in Google UK. Geo filters have always been fairly strong in Google UK for generic phrases for obvious reasons and many, myself included expected this to change back quite quickly as these fluctuations do happen from time to time. I have heard some chatter that the results have reverted back, however almost two weeks later I am surprised to say that the geo problems in the UK SERPS still exist. The UK search results are as bad… -
Bing
1 Jun 2009 | 4:05 amSo Microsofts new search engine brand Bing is live in the UK. I think some negative matching might be required for Bingo PPC advertisers. :-) -
Googles Disappearing Blog Post Phenomenon
23 Mar 2009 | 4:31 amThis is something I have been meaning to discuss for a longtime and is not something that I have really seen anyone talk about much. I noticed this quite sometime back when Google started crawling and indexing new blog pages within minutes and ranking this content very quickly in their search results. Crawling and indexing content so quickly was developed to support their query deserves freshness (QDF) algorithm which enables Google to show hot new content almost immediately for the freshest and most up to date search results. However what I noticed is that while blog pages can be indexed and… -
Linkfromdomain Command – Much Underused
17 Mar 2009 | 8:09 amI still love the linkfromdomain command on Live.com. Like MSN / Live (perhaps Kumo?!) search platform, it’s often forgotten about. But actually it still has much value for SEO. Here are 3 quick reasons why - 1) Check Your Outbound Links – You can’t always control who links to you, but you can control who you link out to which means it’s a fantastic indicator of trust to the search engines. We have seen time and time again when sites start linking out to poor neighbourhoods or spam (hacked sites or the DP network as extreme examples) your rankings die. So use the… -
This Site May Harm Your Computer
31 Jan 2009 | 7:03 amLooks as though Google has a bit of a problem today because it’s labeling every site with the ‘this site may harm your computer‘ warning accross all it’s SERPS. This seems to be on Google.co.uk and Google.com. Oops. Even for their own sites.
