Internet Marketing Consulting Blog

Google AdWords Management & Pay Per Click Marketing Blog

Internet Marketing & Consulting by Windy City Strategies, Chicago Illinois. A full service Internet Consulting company specializing in Pay Per Click Management, PPC, Website Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Local Business Listings, Shopping Portal Management, SEO, and Social Media Marketing, SMM.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Privacy Search Engine Offers Anonymous Web Browsing

Search engine firm Startpage, and its E.U. brand, Ixquick, has released a new proxy service that let’s users search the web in privacy. You can now browse Web sites anonymously, without sharing any private or personally identifiable information to the Web sites they view.

When you conduct a search on Startpage, you will see a clickable “proxy” option below each search results. When this is selected, Startpage acts as a go-between to retrieve the page and display it in a privacy-protected window.

"People are more concerned about online data retention policies than ever before," said CEO Robert Beens. 



"We wanted to offer them a useful tool and this proxy is a logical extension of our services. A search engine is a starting point for people to visit other pages. Now our users can take the privacy they get with Startpage to the next step, and go privately to the sites they have found as well. This proxy completes the total search privacy picture."



According to Startpage, it does not record IP addresses, make a record of users' searches or record details about proxy usage.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 7:51 PM

Google Announces Unicode Progress

Google made an announcement regarding Unicode. Google users will like the news because the searches should now turn up additional useful results.

On Google’s official blog, Mark Davis explained that, "[T]he characters 'fi' can either be represented as two characters ('f' and 'i'), or a special display form 'fi'. A Google search for [financials] or [office] used to not see these as equivalent - to the software they would just look like *nancials and of*ce."



He went on to add, "But no longer - after extensive testing, we just recently turned on support for these and thousands of other characters; your searches will now also find these documents."



Google’s tracking Unicode usage based on its index and Google believes that Unicode has nearly earned the “giant” moniker.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 7:47 PM

Google Celebrates Data Privacy Day

On January 28 Google celebrated Data Privacy Day (or known as Data Protection Day). To celebrate, Google decided to publish its Privacy Principles.

Google has five Privacy Principles and considers them important enough to capitalize the overarching term. The official explanation stated, "Our Privacy Principles help guide decisions we make at every level of our company, so we can help protect and empower our users while we fulfill our ongoing mission to organize the world's information."

The five principles are as follows:
1. Use information to provide our users with valuable products and services.
2. Develop products that reflect strong privacy standards and practices.
3. Make the collection of personal information transparent.
4. Give users meaningful choices to protect their privacy.
5. Be a responsible steward of the information we hold.

It’s best to know that these Principles aren’t new. All Google did was make some longstanding guidelines public. On the Google’s official blog, it referred to "privacy-enhancing initiatives and features" this morning and promised, "[T]here is more in store for 2010."

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 7:44 PM

Google has increased its sitemaps limit from 1,000 to 50,000. On Google’s Webmaster’s forum thread, a discussion was made back in April 2009 where Google employee Jonathan Simon said that each sitemap index file could include 1,000 sitemaps.

Recently David Harkness posted to the same thread and pointed to the official Google documentation for sitemap errors, which says under the “Too many Sitemaps” error:

The list of Sitemaps in your Sitemap index exceeds the maximum allowed. A Sitemap index can contain no more than 50,000 Sitemaps. Split your Sitemap index into multiple Sitemap index files and ensure that each contains no more than 50,000 Sitemaps. Then, resubmit your Sitemap index files individually.

Simon confirmed the larger number, who came back to the conversation where he stated,

"Thanks for resurfacing this thread as we've improved our capacity a bit since then. The limit used to be 1,000. The Help Center article you point to is correct. The current maximum number of Sitemaps that can be referenced in a Sitemap Index file is 50,000."

Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable, came across this post pointed out, "This is a huge increase in capacity...Still, each Sitemap file can contain up to 50,000 URLs, so technically 50,000 multiplied by 50,000 is 2,500,000,000 or 2.5 billion URLs can be submitted to Google via Sitemaps."

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 6:58 AM

Google Announces Another Android Device Giveaway

Game developers might hold Google and Android in higher regard after March 9th and 10th. Google announced that it will give away a bunch of Android devices on those dates.

Google’s employed this strategy to build up hype leading up to the giveaway. For example, the 4,000 people who attended Google I/O received HTC Magics free of charge.

Now, "Google and GDC will . . . be providing complimentary Android phones to attendees who register for All Access or Tutorials and Summits passes by the Early Bird deadline of February 4, 2010. Qualified attendees will receive either a Nexus One or a Verizon Droid by Motorola, so they can quickly apply what they learn from the various Android sessions,” as stated on the Android Developers Blog.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 6:54 AM

Has Google Begun Changing How it Indexes the Web?

Google announced last summer a new project titled, “Caffeine,” which the company described as a “re-write of Google’s web search architecture.”

Before the holidays, Google made it a point to let everyone know that Caffeine won’t be rolled out until after the holidays. January at the absolute earliest. They did this because Google didn’t want to shake up everything during an important time for business.

They let everyone know about its intentions at PubCon in November. Recently, Google’s Matt Cutts posted a video running through his presentation from the event on his blog. Through the slideshow, it covers how much more than just Caffeine. It’s definitely worth checking out

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 6:46 AM

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Google Launches Cost-Per-Call Tracking for TV Ads

Google launched a new feature for Google TV Ads, where advertisers can automatically receive cost-per-call data through the service for TV campaigns that utilize Google supplied toll-free phone numbers. Google says this feature was designed to give TV advertisers access to richer performance data. This will allow more effective optimization based on real-time call data.

"The system tracks incoming calls and matches each call down to the network, daypart and even program level," explains Google's TV Ads team. "Advertisers will find these metrics in their campaign 'Targets' tab which reports data like 'Live Inquiries,' "Drag Inquiries" (calls that come in a significant time after an ad has aired) and cost-per-inquiry."



"Our system takes into account the number of impressions, network, and time of day for each ad to help match calls as accurately as possible," they add. "In addition, the algorithm has been designed to predict call response with increasing accuracy as it learns from your data over time."
To use the feature, advertisers should log into AdWords, create a TV campaign, and sign up for one of Google's 866 numbers (in the phone numbers tab). Then, designate which ad creative will correspond with the number in the Ads tab.

According to Google, advertisers will see data appearing in the cost-per-inquiry columns in the Targets tab of each campaign within a few hours.

Labels: , ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:33 AM

Google Voice Makes Way to iPhone, Palm WebOS

Google is launching the Google Voice application for both the iPhone and Palm WebOS. The program is an HTML5 app, where it provides users with a “fast and versatile” mobile experience.

"For example, AppCache lets you interact with web apps without a network connection and local databases allow you to store data locally on the device, so you don't lose data even when you close the browser,” says Google in a post to its Mobile blog.

"For quick access to the most important features like 'Dialer', 'Compose SMS', 'Inbox' or 'Contacts,' you can add shortcuts to your iPhone home screen or Palm Launcher -- so cheap calls and messaging will be just a single click away. And because the Google Voice web app uses advanced features of modern HTML5 browsers, it offers native app-like performance and speed," Google adds.

Not only can users access a streamlined version of their Google Voice inbox, but with the new app, they’re able to display their Google Voice number as the outbound caller ID. You’re also able to receive text message for free and place international calls at Google Voice’s rates.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:29 AM

YAHOO!'s Q4 Financial Results Draw Smiles

YAHOO!'s first quarter earnings report was released and the numbers aren't too drastic or surprising. YAHOO! reported $1.26 billion in net revenue and earnings of 11 cents per share, versus the predictions of $1.23 billion and 11 cents per share. Basically, the numbers are good solid numbers.

There's more good news. The outlook for next quarter looks like it'll be good as well, with Carol Bartz saying, "Our business has positive momentum and we feel good as we head into 2010. We're pleased that the midpoint of our Q1 revenue outlook marks the first quarter of year-over-year growth in six quarters."

YAHOO!'s stock is up; shares have risen 1.88 percent so far in after-hours trading.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:18 AM

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Details About How Google Handles Natural Language Search

Google has posted a piece to the Official Google Blog discussing Google's system for understanding synonyms in search. Author Steven Baker said, "An irony of computer science is that tasks humans struggle with can be performed easily by computer programs, but tasks humans can perform effortlessly remain difficult for computers."

Understanding human language has been one of Google’s biggest issues in artificial intelligence and they key to returning the best possible search results. Even though it’s far from perfect, Google has spent a good amount of times into this.

Here are some things that has to do with Google’s handling of synonyms that people should keep in mind:

1. Google routinely monitors its system for handling synonyms with regard to search result relevance.

2. Google says synonyms affect 70% of user searches across over 100 languages.

3. For every 50 searches where synonyms significantly improve search results, Google has only found one "truly bad" synonym.

4. Google doesn’t fix bad synonyms by hand, but rather makes changes to its algorithms to try and correct the problem. Baker hopes this will be fixed automatically in the future.

5. Google has recently made a change to how its synonyms are displayed: in SERP snippets, terms are bolded, just like the actual words you searched for.

6. Google uses "many techniques" to extract synonyms. Its systems analyze perabytes of data to build "an intricate understanding of what words can mean in different contexts"

7. Some words or initials can have tons of different meanings, and Google uses other words in the query to help determine the correct ones. For example, there are over 20 possible meanings for the term "GM" that Google's system knows something about.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:20 AM

Digg Launches New Extensions for Firefox and Chrome

Digg has launched new extensions for the Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers. "A month ago, we announced new capabilities that let developers create writable applications with the Digg API," says Dig's Chris Howard. "We decided to put this to work ourselves and update our original Firefox Extension and also create a new Google Chrome extension at the same time. In both cases, you can now Digg stories as you browse the web, without having to come back to the Digg site each time."

The Chrome extension will include the Digg count for any URL. It will display to the right of the browser’s address bar, users can click it to see the title and comment count for that URL, as well as the button to “Digg” it.

There’s more to this with the Firefox extension. It improves upon the existing Firefox extension. Digg has moved the Digg count and button to the navigation bar so that the toolbar doesn’t have to open for users to Digg stories. The toolbar itself is smaller and added a keyboard shortcut functionality to make it easier to show and hide it. "This makes it really simple to check out the Digg story details for a URL and then close it when you're done," says Howard.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:18 AM

Broadband Users Less Likely To Abandon Job Search

Americans are taking advantage of the Internet even more now as they continue to actively search or jobs and less likely to drop out of the labor force than those without Internet access, according to a study done by the Phoenix Center.

According to the study, users are at least 50 percent less likely to give up searching for a job because of discouragement than those not using the Internet. "By connecting Americans to jobs and information about job opportunities, Internet usage feeds hope and encourages frustrated workers to keep on looking even when job prospects are dim," according to Phoenix Center President Lawrence J. Spiwak. "These findings suggest that broadband connectivity can contribute to economic recovery."

"Our study also shows the enormous potential benefit of community broadband centers for those who are not connected at home," Spiwak adds. "While broadband use at home delivers significant benefits, shared facilities can be a valuable solution to connectivity gaps in unserved and underserved communities."

The U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, who are responsible for the government’s monthly data on employment and unemployment, estimates adding, discourage workers,” as defined by the Bureau, who quit looking for a job as of December 2009, would boost the current U.S. jobless rates above the recent reported 10 percent level.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:15 AM

Monday, January 25, 2010

Google Still Rules The Global Search Market

The U.S. is still the largest search market worldwide, while Google is still in the commanding position in the global search market, according to comScore.

"The global search market continues to grow at an extraordinary rate, with both highly developed and emerging markets contributing to the strong growth worldwide," said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president.

"Search is clearly becoming a more ubiquitous behavior among Internet users that drives navigation not only directly from search engines but also within sites and across networks. If you equate the advancement of search with the ability of humans to cultivate information, then the world is rapidly becoming a more knowledgeable ecosystem."

The total global search market had more than 131 billion searches of people 15 or older in December 2009, which is a 46 percent increase in the past year. To break down the numbers, it represents more than 4 billion searches a day, 175 million per hour and 29 million per minute. The U.S. is the largest individual search marketing in the world with 22.7 billion searches, about 17 percent of searches globally.

Google sites were the top search property worldwide with 87.8 billion searches in December, 66.8 percent of the global search market. Google sites saw a 58 percent increase in search query volume over the past year. Yahoo sites ranked second globally with 9.4 billion searches, which is up 13 percent.

Labels: , ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:04 AM

Google Narrows Down Mobile Ad Targeting

Google announced that the company would now make sure that ads linking up to mobile app would download automatically and appear only on devices that actually offer those apps. Also, these ads will display a “download” link as opposed to a URL.

"Simply include 'itunes.apple.com/' or 'market.android.com/' followed by the app name in the ad's visible URL, and it will automatically display as 'Download iPhone App' or 'Download Android App,'" says Katrina Kurnit of Google's Inside AdWords crew.

Advertisers will have the option to select specific devices or carries for their ads in general.

"If you've chosen to show ads on iPhones and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers, you can now target specific mobile devices or carriers," says Kurnit. "This feature makes it easier for you to reach the right users if you have a carrier- or device-specific message. This includes landing pages that have been optimized for a specific device, billing relationships with certain carriers, or mobile apps developed for a specific platform. For example, if you sell iPhone cases, you can use device targeting to ensure that users with Android phones won't see your ads."

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:01 AM

Kaboodle Adds Real-Time Product Search

The online social shopping service Kaboodle announced today that it’s re-launching its Web site to improve its product-discovery search engine. The company has improved its end-user experience by offering real-time product search, which give customers the ability to see products that are the most popular based on user-set parameters, such as, items from a specific store, within a specific category, and related items.

Users can see a timeline around product discovery on Kaboodle, creating relevance, context, and value by knowing something is popular based on a particular time frame. This is the start of an ongoing initiative to create and improve Kaboodle’s real-time product search, which will leave to the rollout of more upgrades throughout the year.

This is the beginning of an ongoing initiative to create and improve Kaboodle's real-time product search and will lead to the rollout of more upgrades throughout the year.

"Our enhanced product discovery engine provides an even richer, more relevant and more personalized shopping experience for our users, making it easy for shoppers to find the great products added by our fast growing community in a very simple way," said Manish Chandra, CEO and co-founder of Kaboodle.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:59 AM

Friday, January 22, 2010

YAHOO! Terms and Conditions Change

On February 16, 2010, YAHOO!’s advertiser Master Terms and Conditions and Program Terms will be modified to reflect recent changes to their products and services. Please review the new version here as you continue to use YAHOO! advertising products on and after it changes on February 16th.

You can also view the current Master Terms and Conditions and Programs Terms, which will stay in effect until February 15th here. The new modified version will be found at that same URL.

The changes made to the Mater Terms and Conditions and Program Terms include, but are not limited to, the following areas:
  • Removal of some Programs that have been discontinued
  • Addition of two new Programs
  • Liberalization of cancellation rights in the Display Advertising Program Terms
  • Clarification of data usage rights
Please note that certain Program Terms within the new Master Terms and Conditions will not apply to you if you have not enrolled in those Programs.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:47 AM

Google's Stock Falls Despite Strong Numbers

Google's latest earnings report came out and the search giant is doing well during the fourth quarter of 2009. The only thing is, many people were hoping, or even wanting, it to do better because the stick has taken a plunge in after-hours trading.

Now here’s the good news. Google generated $4.95 billion in net revenue, topping a consensus estimate of $4.92 billion. The company reported $6.79 in terms of earnings per share, even though they were estimated to hit closer to $6.50.

Eric Schmidt thinks the company is right on track. "Google had a strong fourth quarter, with 17% year over year revenue growth," he said in a statement. "Given that the global economy is still in the early days of recovery, this was an extraordinary end to the year. As we enter 2010, we remain hugely optimistic about the Internet and are continuing to invest heavily in technological innovation for the benefit not only of our users and customers, but also the wider web."

Anyone who bought Google’s stock just before the closing of the market and earnings report coming in came out has lost a good amount of money; Google’s stock is down 4.33 percent in after-hours trading at the moment.

Labels: , ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:38 AM

Mozilla Says New Firefox 20% Faster Than Last Version

Mozilla has launched the latest version of its popular Firefox web browser, version 3.6. They say the new version is 20 percent faster than the previous version for web searching. The new features include:
  • Personas: Personalize the look of your Firefox by selecting new themes called Personas in a single click and without a restart
  • Plugin Updater: To keep you safe from potential security vulnerabilities, Firefox will now detect out of date plugins
  • Stability improvements: Firefox 3.6 significantly decreased crashes caused by third party software – all without sacrificing our extensibility in any way
  • Form Complete: When filling out an online form, Firefox suggests information for fields based on your common answers in similar field
  • Performance: Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness, and startup time
  • Open Video and Audio: With the world’s best implementation of HTML 5 audio and video support, now video can be displayed full screen and supports poster frames

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:35 AM

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Click Fraud Rate Spikes 25% In Q4

The average for attempted pay per click fraud rate has increased from 18.6 percent in the third quarter of 2009 to 25.7 percent in the fourth quarter, according to Anchor Intelligence. The jump in pay per click fraud rate in Q4 happened because of more activity by click fraudsters wanting to take advantage of the increase in holiday ad spend online. The spread of botnets, which is used for automating traffic and coordinating click fraud activity, spiked late in the quarter.

"As botnets become more flexible and resilient, click fraud will be increasingly difficult to identify without a collaborative and systematic, network-based approach," said Ken Miller, CEO of Anchor Intelligence.

"By releasing this report, we hope to provide a barometer by which the industry can assess the level of threats to online advertising while also conveying the importance of advertising with ad networks and search engines that partner with third-parties to certify their traffic quality."

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:04 AM

Initiatives to Strengthen YAHOO!’s Search Marketing Marketplace

YAHOO! has launch product enhancements designed to give you more transparency into the performances of the traffic you receive. Hoping to strengthen the YAHOO! Search marketing marketplace. This tool will help make it easier to manage campaigns.

Network Distribution
This feature lets you set up campaigns or ad groups targeting YAHOO! Search, YAHOO! Partners or both. While campaign objectives will determine the best use of this, its best that advertisers target the Entire Network to maximize traffic volume while retaining the ability to bid p or down on YAHOO! Partners. For the best control and optimization, duplicate key campaigns with one targeting YAHOO! Search and the other targeting YAHOO! Partners.

Import Campaigns
Import Campaigns is designed to help you easily and efficiently convert your campaign data from Google AdWords into YAHOO! Search Marketing formats. Just download the third-party file and import it from your computer into Sponsored Search interface. Once the import is done, you’ll be able to view any errors and pause the campaigns for review.

Labels: , ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:01 AM

Report Suggests More Revenue, but Less Advertisers for Google

Competitive intelligence agency AdGooroo released a new report that indicates there has been a decrease in active advertisers for Google, despite projected Q4 gains.

"Google experienced a quality purge this quarter and banned what we believe to be more than 30,000 advertisers, accounting for about 5.3 percent of its active advertiser base," said AdGooroo Founder and CEO Rich Stokes. "While this typically signals a negative impact on revenues, AdGooroo also tracked increased competition for ad placement, resulting in higher ad prices for Google and unusually high click through rates. Google seems to be taking advantage of a strong Q4 to make some quality improvements."

The report states that ad coverage, which is steadily climbing and has been for the past 12 months, took a sudden dive in December and dropped almost 10 percent; from 5.48 ads per keyword in November to 4.97 in December.

The firm states that the fourth quarter has been strong for Google and they’re expecting it to be the case again this year. "This seasonal improvement has less to do with total search query volume (which historically is about the same as November), and more with increased competition for ad placement (higher ad prices) and unusually high click through rates," says AdGooroo.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:59 AM

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Google Makes it Harder to Hide from Bad Reputation

Google is now including reviews from more sources on its Place Pages for businesses. They won’t be coming from review sites only; they’re coming from news and blog sites.

Mike Blumenthal, writer for the Understanding Google Maps & Local Search blog, has an in depth analysis of the change and got confirmation about it from Google Maps Product Manager Carter Maslan.

"This change portends a dramatically changed review landscape where both the volume of reviews for some types of businesses will rise and the dynamics of reputation management will change. It could very well shift the balance of power away from centralized review sites and could be one more impediment to any recovery of the IYP sites," says Blumenthal.

"Google Maps is now using the new capability of sentiment analysis to better understand content and add 'reviews' from non traditional sources like newspaper articles and single blog entries that appear across the internet," he says. "This new capability will dramatically increase the reach of hyperlocal blogs, change how businesses manage the review process and could, over the long haul, change how and where reviews are generated and aggregated."

It’s no surprise that Google wants to reach more sources for review, like content on Place Pages. Considering the breadth of information Google indexes, it’s pretty obvious that Google would bring together information about a business from a variety of sources. It is not particularly surprising that Google would reach to more sources for review-like content on Place Pages.

Given they offer customers a positive experience, Google’s inclusion of more sources in place Pages can benefit from this. It can be hard to get a good reputation if you don’t deliver something positive to begin with. This addition will make it harder for businesses to hide a bad reputation.

Labels: , ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:11 AM

Internet Users Favor Google Over Newspaper websites

It's not secret that U.S. newspapers print circulation is declining and will continue to do so since consumers are constantly going online for their news, according to Outset. The form is predicting that there will be a 3.5 percent annual drop in both the daily and Sunday circulation, leading to 43 million Sunday newspaper readers as opposed to the 62 million in the early 90s. “Among the aggregators, Google’s effect on the newspaper industry is particularly striking,” said Outsell analyst Ken Doctor.

He also added that even though Google is driving some traffic to newspapers, “it’s also taking a significant share away. A full 44 percent of visitors to Google News scan headlines without accessing newspapers’ individual sites.”

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:07 AM

Content Can Now Go Viral More Easily with Facebook

Facebook has made some changes over the past year, which will bring a Twitter-like feel to the popular social networking site. So why would Facebook want to become more like Twitter? Because they see the popular growth in Twitter and want to make sure they can offer everything that their competition has to offer.

The latest feature is the “share” button, which will be like Twitter’s “retweet” feature. Just click the “share” button and you’re able to share the link to all your friends on Facebook. And like that, you’re now sharing the link with your friends, who can be a variety or people who aren’t friends with the original poster. This will make Facebook even more valuable for content publishers and social media marketers. This will help content go viral by spreading it through new audiences.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:06 AM

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Will Apple and Google Have Some Real Smartphone Competition?

In November, Sony Ericsson announced its new smartphone, the Xperia X10. The much anticipated by mobile enthusiasts is expected to give popular phones (the iPhone, Google) some serious and quite interesting competition. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Sony Ericsson was of course demonstrating this device.

"The XPERIA X10 is a fantastic example of our make believe philosophy because we are pushing the boundaries of what is possible and demonstrating that anything consumers can imagine, we can make possible," Rikko Sakaguchi, EVP and Chief Creation Officer, Sony Ericsson said. "With the X10, we are raising the bar we have set ourselves with entertainment-rich phones like Aino and Satio by making communication more fun and playful, multiplying and enriching opportunities to connect."

A couple of the device's interesting features include "Timescape" and "Mediascape". Timescape provides users with a chronological collection of all their communication (email, Facebook, text messages, phone calls, etc.) on the phone in a single place. Mediascape is a similar functionality, but it stores music, videos and photos. It also has some cool facial-recognition functionality.

"The XPERIA X10 and the family of phones launching in the first half of 2010 underpin our commitment to an open and multi-platform strategy that maximizes choice for the consumer and delivers the best possible consumer experience," says Bert Nordberg, President, Sony Ericsson. "The reaction from our global operator partners to the XPERIA X10 has been extremely positive and we will be rolling out across the world including Japan from the first half of 2010."

US release date is unknown at this time.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:53 AM

Avast Software Added To Google Pack

Google has revised its approach to connect people with security products. Avast Free Antivirus is now included in eight different versions of the Google Pack bundle of the software. When you download the Google Pack, you’ll see Avast’s logo among the symbols of Chrome, Google Earth, Picasa, and a handful of other things. This endorsement should help Avast Free Antivirus Version 5 find its way onto more than a few new computers.

Oddly enough though, the Spyware Doctor with Anti-Virus and not Avast’s product is still recommended to anyone that takes a look at Google Pack in English. If it’s because the change is an experiment or Google’s been caught mid-rollout, it’s still unsure. Or it could be that Google wants to split hairs because of what security software is most effective in different markets.

It’s more likely that this adjustment represents some form of payback. It was noted that Avast’s blog announced that the software would offer users the option to install Google Chrome.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:51 AM

More Complaints Filed Against Google In Germany

It seems the executives and lawyers at Google Germany have been working really hard lately. This weekend, words spread about three complaints against the organized were filed with Germany’s Federal Cartel Office.

Ciao, a Microsoft-owned online network for shoppers, is behind one of the complaints. Euro-Cities, which is a mapping site, and publishers' associations BDZV and VDZ, are responsible for the other two. They're unhappy about an advertising contract, Google Maps's lack of fees and Google News's use of snippets.

Kay Oberbeck, spokesperson for Google Germany, responded by telling the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, "We are very willing to explain our products and business practices to the Cartel Office and show that we are convinced these are in line with German and European law."

Not matter how much Google is of its compliance; the company could be facing an uphill batter. Earlier this month, Germany's justice minister alleged, "what's taking shape there to a large extent is a giant monopoly," and Google's been treated with hostility many previous times in the country, too.

Labels: , , ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:49 AM

Monday, January 18, 2010

With Real-Time Search Comes Real-Time Advertising

Real-time search engine OneRiot announced a new "real-time ad network,” RiotWise, today that the company says it’s designed to help “developers monetize their applications.

"2009 witnessed an explosion of apps and services catering to users of the realtime web," says Tobias Peggs, GM of OneRiot. "RiotWise is the way to monetize those apps in 2010. Our ads make sense to buyers, make sense to users, and transparently deliver revenue to developers across the realtime web ecosystem."

According to OneRiot, RiotWise has proved to be "extremely effective" at monetizing mobile apps, desktop clients, social search engines, and other applications in the realtime web space in a now completed pilot phase. "RiotWise ads are contextually relevant in realtime, resulting in high Click Through Rates (CTR)," the company says. "Advertisers include a range of publishers such as entertainment sites, sports networks, and news organizations. Dynamically created ads link to quality content from these publishers that is highly related to a users' realtime search term or a global trending topic."

According to OneRiot, the ads are performing at three to four times the industry standard CTR for ads in real-time web apps and delivering significant revenue to developers.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 7:42 AM

Google Files FCC Submission, Talks Open Internet Goals

Google has filed a submission, on its own and one jointly with Verizon, to the FCC for its proposed rulemaking docket. Google says its goal is "to keep the Internet awesome for everybody."

"There's a lot of awesome stuff on the Internet: Cats talking LOLspeak. Iranian dissidents tweeting. Live traffic updates. Science experiments," says Rick Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel on Google's Public Policy Blog. "All of these things, and so much more, are possible because of the openness of the Internet. Any entrepreneur with an idea has always been able to create a website and share their ideas globally – without paying extra tolls to have their content seen by other users. An open Internet made Google possible eleven years ago, and it's going to make the next Google possible."

Here’s an outline as to what Google supports in its FCC filing:
  • Adding a nondiscrimination principle that bans prioritizing Internet traffic based on the ownership (the who), the source (the what) of the content or application;
  • Adding a transparency principle that ensures all users have clear information about broadband providers' offerings;
  • Providing a carefully-defined "reasonable network management" exception so that broadband providers are empowered to address genuine congestion issues and protect against hazards like malware and spamming;
  • Applying general openness protections to both wireline and wireless broadband infrastructure; and
  • Creating better enforcement mechanisms at the FCC, and introducing the concept of technical advisory groups (TAGs) to potentially provide expert advice and resolve disputes.
The FCC's OpenInternet.gov has quite a bit of posts about liveblogging the recent "Innovation, Investment, and the Open Internet" workshop up, which featured discussion from a variety of people about the Open Internet.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 7:40 AM

Yahoo Shows Interest In Yelp

Carol Bartz is showing quite a bit of interest in acquiring Yelp. She was recently interviewed by Brian Womack and was asked about buying the site that’s known for its fast-growing collection of local reviews. Bartz, who’s known for speaking plainly, didn’t give a definite “yes” or “no” answer.

Instead, YAHOO!’s CEO said, "Local is extremely important. People do some outrageous percentage of their commercial spending five miles from their home." Even though Bartz’s answer isn’t exactly affirmative, the odds favor anything happening. The rumor mill later year indicated that Google is trying to acquire Yelp, with Google’s popularity & deeper pockets couldn’t secure a deal, it’s difficult to imagine YAHOO! succeeding.

This isn’t a definite “YAHOO! will acquire Yelp” announcement so much as an exercise in parsing CEO’s sentences.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 7:38 AM

Friday, January 15, 2010

Network Distribution Update

YAHOO! has their new Network Distribution (ND) is scheduled to launch on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010. This will allow advertisers to optimize their Internet marketing campaigns based on the source of traffic, control where their ads appear and bid separately on Y! Search and Y! Partners.

Advertisers will have 3 targeting options:
  1. Entire Network-includes Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Partners
  2. Yahoo! Search-includes all Yahoo! O&O properties and co-branded sites
  3. Yahoo! Partners-includes all Yahoo! Partners
Advertisers will also be able to premium or discount bid on the Yahoo! Partner Network
  • Premium/Discount bidding is done by % only, not dollar amounts
  • You CANNOT Premium/Discount bid on the Yahoo! Search Network
  • ND does not apply to Content Match
Important Information
Blocking Yahoo! Partners will greatly reduce traffic. Test by maintaining “Entire Network” settings and bid Adjusting. Using the Bid Adjustment may cause some keywords to fall below MRP, which will make them inactive. Your specific campaign objectives will also decide the best use of ND controls.

Utilize the Ad Delivery Report to get insight into where ads are showing on partner sites. Use conversion data to determine which partners to add to blocked domains. Utilize Domain Blocks by adding any low conversion partners to this feature. Conversion Tracking data is crucial for making decisions about which partners to block and place premium or discounted bids on

Best Practices
Avoid blocking Partner Network. You can reference the Ad Delivery Report and max out Blocked Domains to improve performance.

If ROI hasn’t improved within a month, utilize ND by either.
  • Using Bid Adjustments (Preferred Method). Maintain targeting Entire Network and Premium/Discount bids on the Partner Network based on performance in the Network Distribution and Ad Delivery Reports
  • Duplicate a subset of your high-value campaigns. Set unique bids, ads and Tracking URLs by Network
  • After exhausting all of these steps, block the Partner Network as a last resort.

Labels: , ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:33 AM

How Google Rates Links from Facebook and Twitter

Links from relevant and important Web sites have always been one of the best ways to get traffic to a Web site or landing page. But how do you rate links that come from new platforms like Twitter and Facebook to a Web site or landing page?

Google treats these links the same whether they are from Facebook or Twitter, as they would if they came from any other Web site. It’s just an extension of the pagerank formula, where it’s not the amount of links, but how reputable those particular links are.

Even though links from Twitter or Facebook may be treat like any other link, they still come with things to keep in mind. On Facebook profiles are not public. When a profile isn’t public, Google can’t crawl it and it won’t get assigned a pagerank on the outgoing link if it can’t fetch the page to see what the outgoing links are. If the page is public, however, it might be able to flow pagerank. Most Twitter links are nonfollowed.

While Facebook and Twitter links may be treated like any other links, they do still come with things to keep in mind. For one, with Facebook, you have to keep in mind that a lot of profiles are not public. When a profile is not public, Google can't crawl it, and it can't assign pagerank on the outgoing links if it can't fetch the page to see what the outgoing links are. If the page is public, it might be able to flow pagerank, Matt says. With Twitter, most links are nofollowed anyway.

"At least in our web search (our organic rankings), we treat links the same from Twitter or Facebook or, you know, pick your favorite platform or website, just like we'd treat links from Wordpress or .edus or .govs or anything like that," says Matt Cutts. "It's not like a link from an .edu automatically carries more weight or a link from a .gov automatically carries more weight. But, the specific platforms might have issues, whether it's not being crawled or it might be nofollow. It would keep those particular links from flowing pagerank."

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:29 AM

Google's Place Pages Just Got More Useful

Google is bringing in new features for its recently launched Place Pages for local businesses. Businesses can instantly post data to their Place Pages from Google’s Local Business Center dashboard. When you log in, all you need to do is post updates, coupons, announcements, etc. and they will all be live within minutes.

This tool can be extremely useful for Internet marketing companies or other businesses that are running time-sensitive promotions and want people to use Google to find a local service in that area to see them.

Google is also introducing a badge for listings that have been claimed in the Local Business Center. "This helps our users identify listings that have been updated and improved by their business owners, helping them to trust that the information about your business is as accurate as possible. We are also making it even easier to claim your listing directly from the Place Page by following the 'Business owner?' link," says Google. While the badges have been out for a while now, they haven’t been “formally” launched.

"We're excited about how Place Pages can help business owners connect with the large number of new and existing customers who visit these pages each day. These users come to Place Pages to easily find basic information, photos, and reviews about your business, as well as a map, Street View photos, and nearby transit information to help them get to your doorstep."

Local search and Place Pages appear to be an increasingly growing part of Google's focus. The Favorite Places program and "Near Me Now' feature are more evidence of that.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:25 AM

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Google Campaign Optimizer

There are hundreds of AdWords Management companies that will help optimize your AdWords campaign, but be sure to take advantage of every free tool and feature Google has to help AdWords clients get the most out of the program.

One tool in particular is the Campaign Optimizer that’s available within your AdWords account. When you implement some of the suggestions, you’ll be able to tweak your results enough to have positive changes to the return on investment (ROI). Campaign Optimizer takes a look at your ad text, keywords, landing page, and budget and runs it through their extensive database of past ad campaigns, comparing and analyzing in order to come up with a proposal of suggested changes. Once the proposal is presented, you have the option of implementing the changes or not on a piece-by-piece basis.

The three main areas the Campaign Organizer focuses on are: ad text, keywords, and budget analysis.

Ad text: Creating your ad text will make further suggestions on aspects like punctuation and capitalization.

Keywords: Keywords are important in your AdWords Campaign. This tool will look at the landing page(s) associated with your campaigns and what keywords will generate traffic to them.

Budget: After looking at the history of your AdWords Campaign, Google can find opportunities you’ve missed by not having enough in your budget to take advantage of them. A new budget proposal will be presented along with the details of missed opportunities.

The Campaign Organizer does not offer an intensive analysis of your campaign on the level of detail that an AdWords management company would put together, nor does the program suggest actions to cover all your bases. Only you can ultimately decide how useful of a feature it is for your specific AdWords campaigns.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:18 AM

Google PPC Click Fraud Getting Harder to Detect

Those guilty of Google pay-per-click fraud are getting sneakier by the day. Ben Edelman, a Harvard Business School professor, has discovered one of the more “diabolical” click fraud schemes out there.

He summarized it by saying:

Here, spyware on a user's PC monitors the user's browsing to determine the user's likely purchase intent. Then the spyware fakes a click on a Google PPC ad promoting the exact merchant the user was already visiting. If the user proceeds to make a purchase -- reasonably likely for a user already intentionally requesting the merchant's site -- the merchant will naturally credit Google for the sale. Furthermore, a standard ad optimization strategy will lead the merchant to increase its Google PPC bid for this keyword on the reasonable (albeit mistaken) view that Google is successfully finding new customers. But in fact Google and its partners are merely taking credit for customers the merchant had already reached by other methods.

He went into detail about all of the about how he figured it out and pointed to a perpetrator, Trafficsolar, which he blames InfoSpace for connecting Google to. He goes on to say that Google should drop its relationship with InfoSpace and other partners with their own chains of partners. This makes it even harder to monitor. Click Forensics Steve O’Brien doesn’t think it’s worth going that far. "A better solution would be for Google and InfoSpace to deal only with reputable partners who provide verified, audited clicks to ensure advertisers get what they pay for," says O'Brien.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:16 AM

Import your Google Analytics Goals into AdWords and use them with Conversion Optimizer

In order to track your return on investment (ROI) from AdWords, you need to be able to see which keywords, ads and campaigns lead to conversions on your site. If you use Google Analytics, you can now import your Google Analytics Goals and Transactions into your AdWords account to use as conversion actions. This will allow you to track the ROI from your AdWords campaigns directly inside the AdWords interface.

For the newbies, a “conversion” happens when a visitor to your site completes the desired action (making or purchase or requesting a quote). The conversion is a similar concept to that of a Goal or Transaction in Google Analytics.

A benefit of importing your Google Analytics Goals and Transactions into AdWords is that you are able to use them with the Conversion Optimizer. Conversion Optimizer makes it a lot easier to manage your AdWords bidding and maximize results.

Here's how to get started importing your Google Analytics Goals and Transactions into AdWords:

Link your Accounts, Enable Sharing and Setup a Goal

Link your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts and create at least one Google Analytics Goal or track at least on Google Analytics Transactions. You’ll need to enable data sharing in Google Analytics by completing the following steps:

1. Sign in to your Google Analytics account.
2. Click "Edit Account and Data Sharing Settings."
3. Make sure you've selected at least the "With other Google products only" options under "Share my Google Analytics data."
4. Click "Save Changes" to finish.

Import your Goals into AdWords

1. Navigate to the "Conversion Tracking" page from within your AdWords account.
2. Click "Link your Analytics goals and transactions" from the Conversion Tracking table.
3. Select the Goals or Transactions you want from the list.
4. Edit the action name so you can identify the goals in your AdWords reports.
5. Select "Link" from the bottom of the table to finish.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:14 AM

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Tips and Tools for Expanding Keywords Lists

Google Analytics is used to find the best keywords and move the budget to the highest converting keywords. However, what if you’re looking to expand the keyword lists? This is how you can leverage other free Google tools to optimize your marketing campaigns beyond Google Analytics.

1) Take a look at the best performing keywords from your Google Analytics Keyword Report.

2) Take these keywords and your Web site’s URL and put them into the Search-based Keyword Tool to find the keywords not in your AdWords campaign. This tool is helpful because they’re specific to the site and keywords you define are based on actual past Google queries.

3) For each keyword identified, you can then use Google Insights for Search to see trends in what the world is searching for. Optimize through geotargeting to see where regional interest is highest.

You can also enter your top-performing keywords from Google Analytics directly into Google Insights for Search to identify top-related and rising searches. This tool can also expand your keyword lists to keep them current by staying on top of current and related search trends.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 12:54 PM

Understanding the Pay-Per-Click

Pay-per-click advertising is a recent phenomenon that many business owners are not familiar with nor do they understand what potential this can have to increase their online presence and bring more traffic to their Web site. Even those familiar sometimes struggle knowing the difference between pay-per-click ad campaigns and organic search engine optimization.

Pay-per-click (PPC) search engines offer a marketing option called “pay-per-click to users. PPC advertising is the placement of a small ad on the search results page for a specific keyword in return for a specified payment when a visitor actually clicks on the ad. Advertisers don’t pay anything to appear on the results page, they only pay the amount they agreed on (or bid on) when someone actually clicks on their ad and is taken to the landing page of the Web site. The “pay-per-click” term means exactly what it says; the advertisers pays each time a visitor clicks on the ad.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 12:50 PM

AdWords Conversion Tracking is now even easier

I’m sure you’ve noticed that AdWords Conversion Tracking interface now has a tool that’s been redesigned to allow implement, monitor and troubleshoot a lot easier.

Now there are three easy-to-use tabs, Conversions, Webpages and Code that will allow you to manage your conversion data.

Conversions: You can see the information about the conversion actions you’re tracking.

• The "Tracking Status" column lets you know whether a conversion action is tracking properly.
• The "Value" column shows the accumulated value of the conversions you've received based on the value you've assigned to each action.
• The "New Conversion" button allows you to easily create new conversion actions or import them from a linked Google Analytics account.

Webpages: This is where you can see which pages on your site are getting conversions. You’ll also see a breakdown of the number of conversions per page on the site. This will be helpful for troubleshooting since you can make sure conversions are coming from the pages you expect and identify these pages that aren’t reporting conversion activity.

Code: This is where you get the tracking code for each conversion action.

Now is a great time to try AdWords Conversions Tracking Conversion Tracking gives you an accurate way to measure the success of your AdWords campaigns.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 12:48 PM

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Nexus: Only the Beginning for Google

Google’s launch of the Nexus One smart phone has been the biggest tech product to hit store shelves this year. The best news was when the company announced that the phone could be sold without a carrier contract.

The device didn’t get the best reviews when consumers complained about the poor 3G connections and customer support issues. Google has acknowledge the problems by saying, "We've worked closely with our Nexus One launch partners to make support available through a variety of channels. This is a new way to purchase and support a mobile phone, and we're committed to sorting out the few kinks that do exist."

The Nexus One has been forecast to sell five or six million units this year and generate between $2.6 billion and $3.2 billion. Google is selling the phone for $529 on its own or $179 if purchased through T-Mobile.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:30 AM

Word of the Decade: Google

Looks like Google has some celebrating to do. The American Dialect Society has declared “Google” the word of the decade. The ADS intentionally chose a generic form of the name and defined it to mean to “search the Internet.” So according to them, searcher might use Bing of YAHOO! to “Google” things the same way that allergy sufferers use store-brand Kleenex.

Grant Barrett, chair of the ADS's New Words Committee, explained in a formal announcement, "Both words are, in the end, products of the Information Age, where every person has the ability to satisfy curiosity and to broadcast to a select following, both via the Internet."

ADS also chose “tweet” as 2009’s word of the year.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:26 AM

Google Analytics and AdWords: Better Together

It’s important to optimize the return on your Google advertising investment. Now, it’s even more important than ever. Google Analytics specializes in giving you the metrics needed to make the best advertising decisions.

Linking your Google AdWords and Analytics accounts, will allow you to optimize your AdWords investment even more effectively with increased trackability and customized reporting.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:22 AM

Monday, January 11, 2010

Is Twitter Necessary for Your Campaign?

Twitter is the most popular network for social media marketing. Companies everywhere are jumping on the social media bandwagon to get their name out there. Taking advantage of Twitter can offer great opportunities and benefits when using the service. But is the site necessary? According to SiteLogic’s Matt Bailey, no you don’t.

People have had successful Internet marketing campaigns long before Twitter was invented and they’ll still be there long after Twitter is gone. However, it’s still a useful tool in a successful social media marketing campaign. Twitter can help you spread the news of your company a lot quicker than before and to a much larger audience.

Think about your goals. Does Twitter fit in? If so, use the site. If you think Twitter doesn’t fit your goals for your campaign, find a different social networking site.

Twitter has a lot of potential to really grow and they’re looking toward monetization and becoming more useful for businesses. Biz Stone, Twitter Co-founder is expecting Twitter to hit billions of tweets per second.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:39 AM

How Keywords Work

In order for your search engine optimization campaign to be successful, it’s good to understand what keywords are and how they work.

Keywords are the words or phrases your customers would use when they’re searching for your product, company or services. These keywords will let you target your ads to your desired audience.

For example, you’re an online camera company. For keywords, you can use “buy digital camera” as a keyword in your AdWords campaign. So when Google users type in that keyword, your ad could appear next to the search results. You can also have your ad appear on sites and products in the Google Network that are related to your keywords.

When you create the most relevant keyword list, you can show your ads to only the most interested users. Doing so will improve the performance of your ads and help maintain lost cost-per-click (CPCs).

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:32 AM

When Businesses Needed a Marketing Campaign

The best Internet marketing campaigns are the ones where the consumers can identify or in some way connect with the company. The best way to achieve this is through story telling with your marketing campaign.

There are six strategies that can be used in your search engine optimization or Internet marketing campaign.

Origin: Where did your company/brand come from?
Purpose: What is your business? Why are you a business?
Vision: This is similar to the purpose, where you are saying where you want your company to go.
Education: Starbucks had a campaign where they educated people with the traditions of coffee. What do you want to educate people with?
Ethics: This is when someone “walks the walks” of what they’re doing. They’re not just talking about it; they’re doing it.
Connection: Reaching out and speaking with potential customers.

Every business has its own story. To have a strong Internet marketing campaign, think hard about what your story is. There’s a great chance that many people will connect with that particular story in some way, and this is the perfect way to keep your company in people’s minds.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:28 AM

Friday, January 8, 2010

Google Simplifies Finding Nearby Businesses from Your Phone

Mobile marketing has gotten even easier now that Google has released the “near me now” feature for the iPhone and Android browser. This feature will show nearby businesses by category based on the user’s location.

According to the Google Mobile team, the feature was designed to “address two user problems.” First, was to make it easier to find out more about places in your area, whether it’s just walking distance or a short car ride. This is a great way to find out what people really feel about a restaurant or a certain company. When you select the “explore right here” option, you are able to find out more information about that particular place.

The second was to make searching for popular categories of close places as easy as possible. In dire need of some caffeine? Just use the “near me now” feature and you can find the closest coffee shop to where you are. To search more categories, just simple hit the “browse more categories” and you’re on your way. It’s really that simple.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:40 AM

Expand your keyword list to gain more traffic

Looking to gain more traffic to your ads? It’s time to consider expanding your list of keywords by adding variations of your best performing keywords. Keywords will increase your traffic, which in turn, will help your pay per click management campaign be more successful.

Here are a few helpful tips for expanding your keyword list:
  • Add product names, brand names you sell and model numbers that are specific to your business
  • Include plural and singular forms of keywords
  • Add common misspellings that users might search for
  • Try relevant variations and synonyms
  • Use Google to search for your keywords and check out the list “search related to:” at the bottom of the page. This will give you even more relevant keywords that aren’t in your list already.

Here’s an example on how you can expand a keyword:

Original keyword list:
  • chocolate gifts, chocolate gift, gift chocolates
Expanded keyword list:
  • chocolate gifts, chocolate gift, gift chocolates, chocolates gifts, chocolate gift basket, chocolate gifts online, chocolate gift sets.
Just these simple steps can make a huge improvement to your pay per click campaign management.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:37 AM

Dell Attributes $6.5 Million In Sales To Twitter

Dell seems to understand the importance of Twitter and social media marketing and how they work. A representative from Dell shared some statistics regarding the hardware manufacturer’s achievements, which is truly impressive.

Back in June, Dell announced that its presence on Twitter generated roughly $3 million in sales. The chief blogger for Dell, Lionel Menchaca, wrote on Direct2Dell today; that the total in Dell’s global reach on Twitter “has resulted in more than $6.5 million in revenue.” He also wrote, "If you look at our aggregate presence on social media networks plus our own community sites, our worldwide community has grown to more than 3.5 million people across the social web, including places like Twitter, Facebook, Direct2Dell and IdeaStorm. That's roughly a fan base the size of the population of Chicago.”

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:35 AM

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Succeeding in SEO

Like with any business, things change. Search engine optimization is constantly changing, which means SEO writers and businesses need to adapt. Yes, I know, we al hate change, but change is a part of any business. Adapting to their changes and ongoing education is important if you want to succeed in SEO. This can be challenging, but hey, who doesn’t like a challenge?

Searching for Profit founder Amanda Watlington recently discussed some growing trends in the search industry and how to understand the change in search landscape. An example is the possible inclusion of site speed as a ranking factor in Google. A major issue is that fact that businesses and clients of SEOs are not eager to spend the time and money needed to make these adjustments to their sites to optimize for speed. In reality, this is the best thing for their customer’s experience.

Another problem is personalized search. Many companies don’t understand that not everyone will see the same search results for any given query, which can be hard for SEOs to convince them this.

A big obstacle is the budget. Businesses are being tight with their money and they are demanding for better results without seeing the “big picture.” This is where search engine optimization professionals come in and educate them as best as they can. SEOs need to find instances to back up their case for those “tight-budgeting” businesses.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:31 AM

Facebook: The hottest form of social media marketing

A student at Harvard University founded Facebook and it quickly spread to other Ivy League Universities before hitting millions of users all over the world. It started out as a helpful tool for student and teachers to get to know other students and friends you want to get back in touch with. Now it’s used as the biggest Internet marketing tool.

Facebook has gotten so popular that people spend hours browsing through profiles, meeting new people and checking out products they like. Companies can take advantage of the easy access and millions of users in their Internet marketing campaign. In just a matter of minutes, companies can have their own profile about their company and products and can easily spread the word through the Internet’s most popular social media Web site.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:28 AM

YouTube: A new way of Internet marketing

Millions of Internet users have a YouTube account or at the least, watch YouTube videos daily via the Web site or embedded onto another Web site. Google purchased the user-generated site for $1.65 billion. YouTube is a user-generated site where anyone can film and upload the videos.

You can learn many things on YouTube. From learning how to play an instrument to learning web design something, it can be done on YouTube. Type in search engine optimization and many how-to videos will pop up. People everywhere are posting on the site and you can easily benefit from what they know.

YouTube is a great site for Internet marketing. Millions of people watch YouTube videos so why not take advantage of that by creating a marketing video promoting your business or products. You can make a professional video, commercial or even a vlog and have it reach out to millions of people worldwide.

Labels: , ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:25 AM

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Click-to-Call in Ads on Mobile Devices with Google AdWords

Mobile marketing will be starting this month and your location-specific business phone number will appear next to your destination URL in ads that appear on high-end mobile devices, according to Google reports. This will allow people to “click-to-call” your business just as easy as clicking the link to your website.

Based on the person’s geographic location, the phone number and closest business address will appear as a “fifth line of ad text” when it appears on mobile devices with full HTML browsers (iPhone, Palm, Blackberry, etc). The cost of this feature will be the same as what a customer pays to view a Web site on their cell phone.

To get your ads to show location-specific phone numbers displayed on mobile devices, make sure your internet marketing campaign is targeting iPhones and other devices that have full HTML browsers and include phone numbers with your business address in the locations under your campaign settings.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 11:11 AM

Google Ditches Local Listings for SEOs and Designers

It’s barely 2010 and Google is already causing controversy for SEO writers and web designers. For a while now, they are noticing that Google is not showing local listings in the search results for queries related to their business. This also includes local-specific businesses.

For example, a search like “chips” without a geographical indicator will bring up local results. However, search “SEO” or “web design” or even “web design in Chicago” and no local listings will come up.

Many SEO writers and designers are taking this as a slap in the face. Search engine optimization and web design are services and should be included in a Google listing search. Many thought this was just a bad bug on Google’s part, but unfortunately, it’s not. It’s “intentionally” showing less local results for web design/SEO queries. They feel that this is the best decision for right now.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 11:09 AM

Measuring SEO results

Before you start any search engine optimization projects, it’s best to decide your business goals. For example, a goal would be to increase a non-branded search traffic by 35 percent. Now it’s time to think about ways to meet your goals and how your SEO team can meet them. To do this, you need to know how to measure your SEO efforts.

Clients will tell you they want to hit a certain ranking for a certain search term. Many products will help set up your rankings. However, these types of programs can scrape your search engine results, which is against the terms of service of search engines. Not to mention they focus on high volume terms, which only make up 10 percent or less of the total search volume. These rankings can also fluctuate for many reasons. It’s ok to check your rankings, but don’t solely base your measure of search engine optimization campaign success on that.

Non-branded search traffic is important because it factors out branded search traffic since few Web sites need search engine optimization help to rank for their brand name. This is because the most popular form of anchor text others use in implementing links to the site home page will be at the organizations name. This can get your irrelevant traffic to your site, so it’s better to evaluate that separately.

Visitor engagement, which includes bounce rate, time on site, and page views per visitor, are important things to keep track of. It’s important to include this when you’re measuring your SEO success.

Conversions will be the most important one to measure. This will tell you how your organic search traffic does in converting into business. The sales of a product is important for companies. Conversions, however, can include “contact us” requests, completed forms, widget downloads, visitors. Measuring traffic and engagement is important in any search engine optimization project, measuring your conversions from organic search traffic is the most important. For example, if your traffic increases by 50 percent and your conversions increase by 30 percent, the gain to your business is 30 percent since the conversions matter the most.

Labels:

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 11:07 AM

Make money off Twitter

You’re probably wondering how it’s possible to make money off Twitter. It’s a good question. An important one at that.

Since the more traditional way of advertising is not as effective anymore, marketers need a new way to advertise. These new outlets are Twitter and Facebook. These sites are important in social media marketing in creating interest and demand.

Twitter can answer questions. All a user has to do is ask a question like, "Where can I buy the foam things for my iPod headphones?" They can get a response from other followers or the company themselves.

You can recruit people for jobs. Similar to Craigslist, Twitter could have their employers pay a small fee to tweet their jobs. Followers can choose which titles and occupations they would like to receive tweets for.

Using Twitter can get your analytics packages for individuals and small business. This is something useful for web designers, writers, authors, etc. to quickly see what the public likes and dislikes about their work. Companies can see what the public thinks about their products.

You can also capture revenue from wireless carries. This is in the carriers’ best interest to have as many text messages as possible going across their networks. Cell phone companies can offer a $5 all-you-can-tweet monthly package.

Want premium service? If you’re launching a version with paid advertising, you can have a premium service that scrubs all the ads, for $4 a month for an advertising-free twitter.

The key to a successful social media marketing campaign is to take advantage of Twitter is to incorporate everything on Twitter to enhance your company rather than it being interruptive detriments.

Labels: , ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 11:04 AM

Social Media is more important than some may realize

Internet marketing companies are now rushing to use social media marketing into their interfaces. Google has turned to Twitter and Facebook, while YAHOO! has a new Twitter tab for news results. Many Internet users are spending a lot of time utilizing social media Web sites any way they can, whether it’s just to connect with others or just to get information. The fact is people are getting most of their information on these networking sites. This information can be following a news publication, getting company updates on a blog or Facebook page or just simply sharing a link.

Because of this, search engines want a piece of this since the main reason they’re there is to help people find what they’re looking for on the Internet.

Given that people are getting more info from social media sites, of course search engines want a piece of that, because their whole reason for existence is naturally to help users find what they are looking for on the web. Using social media Web sites can be important in your social media campaign.

Using search is important in Internet marketing on the Internet. Whether or not your company operates online, your customers still are. Social media is a growing and becoming more and more important in your search. This is just one part of online marketing. There are many more things you can do with social media.

Labels: , ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:20 AM

About CPC and CPM Bids

In campaigns targeted to the search network, a cost per click (CPC) bid is set for each ad group or keyword in your pay per click management campaign. The CPC bid is the amount you are willing to pay for a click on your ad when it appears on Google or one of our partner sites.

With pay per click marketing campaigns targeted to the content network, you have the option to make it a CPC bid of a cost per thousand impressions (CPM) bid for each ad group, keyword or placement. The CPM is the amount you are willing to pay each 1,000 times your ad appears on one of Google's partner sites. You pay when your ad shows, no matter if a user clicks on the ad or not.

With CPC and CPM pricing, you're in control of your bids. With AdWords, it will help keep your costs down to a bare minimum using AdWords Discounter and Smart Pricing.

Labels: ,

posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:12 AM

Windy City Strategies

Windy City Strategies can enhance your company's Internet presence with Social Media Marketing solutions. Our Social Media Marketing solutions are customized for your specific business and are designed to harness the amazing power of BLOG's, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn. These extreamly affordable and easy to implement Social Media Marketing services can easily be combined within our extensive range of other marketing services including: Internet Consulting, Pay Per Click Management, SEO Strategies, as well as Website and Landing Page Design.

Contact us today for your FREE INTERNET MARKETING CONSULTATION at 866-964-5818.

Contact Us

Name:*

Email:*

Phone:*

Website:

Comment:

* required field

Links

Previous Posts

Archives

Blogger Implementation

Subscribe to
Posts [Atom] [RSS]

Qualified Professionals

Adwords Qualified Company Google

Microsoft adExcellence Member

Yahoo! Sponsored Search Ambassador

Testimonials

"We tried PPC in house and thought we did well. Windy City Strategies took over two months ago and has already tripled our prior six month efforts, reduced our cost, delivered understandable reports, and they're nice people to do business with."

– Manis, Automotive Tools and Equipment Company

Reead More

Windy City Strategies, Inc
2380 Esplanade Drive Suite 205 | Algonquin, IL 60102

Home | Testimonials | Case Studies | Blog | Sitemap | SEM Glossary | Contact
Pay Per Click Management | Search Engine Optimization | Website Design | Internet Consulting
Local Business Advertising | Mobile Marketing | Google AdWords Marketing
Google AdWords Management