Saving The World At Google?

Posted by vern on November 30, 2007 at 01:27 PM

Recently it seems that Google is operating under a new mandate. Time was that "Do No Evil" was the corporate mantra, guiding their every move. Two highly publicized initiatives take this philosophy a step further. The Google phone promises to reduce competition and deliver a better cell phone experience. The Google energy project hopes to make electric power generation cheaper than coal, benefiting all of mankind; not just those with cell phones.

What's behind this new "Go Forth And Do Good", save the planet attitude in Mountain View? Are these initiatives really altruistic in nature? Or designed to expand the ever widening impact Google has on our lives in the drive to enhance profits?

From the sound of it, the Google phone project is really software driven. They'll be developing an operating system for handsets. Developing software is certainly something Google has experience with. They'll probably pull this off and add a nice little revenue stream to their operations.

And to be fair I must mention that Google power is a project of Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the company. It's their job to be benevolent. But what do the folks at Google know about power? Do they really think they can solve this? Well, they certainly know how to consume electricity. The company's actual electric use is a closely guarded secret. One can only imagine the drain on the grid created by their millions of servers.

Come to think of it, this project certainly has profit enhancement written all over it. Google shifts spending on developing cheap power to their non-profit to write off the millions they'll spend in R&D. Google will then become the first customer for whatever system they come up with, paying below market prices for the technology.

The bottom line wins again. Brilliant!

Our Ad-Supported World

Posted by matt on November 29, 2007 at 11:38 AM

In the race to hold on to market share, Yahoo continues to expand its ad network holdings. Today ClickZ reported that a deal has been struck between Adobe and Yahoo which will allow publishers the ability to monetize their PDF content with contextually relevant advertising.

A goal of the beta program is to better quantify the scale of the marketplace. A handful of prominent publishers have already signed on, agreeing to serve Yahoo content network ads in their PDF-based content.

All of this begs a couple of questions, though. First, is there a limit to ad supported media and/or software? Second, is all of this off-page (or off-content) linking ultimately beneficial to publishers?

In-game advertising has already taken off, Gmail is ‘reading’ my email to serve me topical ads, and the realms of personal and professional software applications seem like the next logical step. How far off is the day when I’ll be treated to advertisements for low interest rate home loans while entering my mortgage payment into Quicken? Or, as I write this copy, could I be viewing ads for Adobe products, or ClickZ news?

All of that is fine and good; after all, online marketing is my livelihood.

What’s troubling to me, though is the ever-increasing number of reasons for users to abandon content and move onto something else. So much effort is put into creating quality content that holds the consumer’s attention, and hopefully drives them to purchase products or request information or services. Why throw it away (by luring your content consumers away) on a chance to make a few bucks on contextual ads.

It boils down to this, know your goals and stick with them. Take care to not let your desire to monetize content usurp the reason you created the content in the first place.

Marketing Consistency Across the Board

Posted by luke on November 28, 2007 at 03:12 PM

In a past post I discussed the lack of search engine marketing education within university advertising and marketing curriculums and the adverse effect on the search engine marketing industry reaching its full potential. In the following post I pursue a similar theme in regards to reaching full potential as a business.

As a Paid Search Project Manager, it’s more than apparent how easily a lack of communication can hurt campaign performance. More often than not, this lack of communication points back toward setting initial campaign goals.

It only makes sense that marketing play a fundamental role in establishing campaign goals and objectives, however there is another internal player often overlooked during this stage. That player is the IT department.

Let’s say the marketing department’s goals include launching new initiatives along the lines of usability testing, video content, and social marketing. Everything appears to be running smooth until four weeks down the road IT approaches marketing with a timeline three times of what had been set initially.

Whether you’re planning to bring SEM in-house or develop a relationship with an outside agency, IT should be involved during the early stages of the campaign, ensuring that both parties are aware of what they need to be thinking about.

In addition to a strong, two-way communication flow between internal departments, marketers need to understand search and how it can contribute to their overall marketing initiatives. As Search Engine Watch Expert Matt Spiegel explains:

The key players across the media world are all definitely interested in learning as much as possible about search. After all, paid search is predicted by eMarketer to remain over 40 percent of digital media budgets through 2011.

The key concept to understand is that offline marketing initiatives generate demand and search marketing captures that demand. Studies have found that 67% of online users are driven to search by offline channels, implicating the immense impact offline marketing efforts have on a search campaign. What marketers need to know is that search campaign goals need to coincide with the overall marketing objective(s).

Ultimately, successful marketing begins with consistency. Once consistency exists internally it can exist externally, throughout all marketing channels.

How Not to Track Holiday Shoppers

Posted by steve on November 27, 2007 at 12:23 PM

Website traffic. You may be experiencing an influx of it now that we're entering into the holiday shopping season. And you, like many other site owners and webmasters, may also be analyzing that traffic to help serve as the basis for website improvements during the coming year.

Online ads, email marketing campaigns, direct visits, and of course, search engines. Site traffic is coming from all angles during this peak season, and you're taking full advantage of the increased number of hits by tracking online activity.

Are users finding what they're looking for? How are they finding it? Are they converting? All questions which are looking to be answered. Depending on the granularity of the data which is being obtained, however, tracking user activity could be problematic from a search engine standpoint.

Most sites have some type of tracking in place. Some simply track the number of hits and corresponding referrers, others track bounce rates, and a number of sites take it a step further to track on-site click-through rates and activity. Commonly, this type of click-through tracking is done using URL parameters.

Here's an example:

An online retailer has two forms of site navigation. One form is the drop down navigation running along the top of all site pages. The other form is product images, which direct users and engines to the same pages included within the drop down menu.

To track the number of users utilizing the top navigation, the webmaster has added the following parameter to the ends of all URLs in the drop down menu: ?source=drop_down. Similarly, the following parameter has been added to all image links: ?source=image.

What's the problem?

By appending different parameters to the ends of identical URLs, you're essentially telling search engines that you have multiple versions of the same page, thus diluting your internal link popularity.

Here is some user tracking advice directly from Google:

Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. These techniques are useful for tracking individual user behavior, but the access pattern of bots is entirely different. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site, as bots may not be able to eliminate URLs that look different but actually point to the same page.

Using URL tracking parameters on a site can bring about detrimental duplicate content issues. If you want to determine how users are locating conversion points on your site, there are other, more ideal ways to track this type of activity.

This holiday season, make sure you're tracking your site visitors in a search engine friendly manner. Doing so will help to ensure you mitigate search engine confusion and prevent the possibility of diminishing your presence throughout their indices.

Cyber Monday: Is Your Online Store Ready?

Posted by teal on November 26, 2007 at 11:50 AM

You login into your work computer, respond to a few urgent emails in your inbox, check some weekend stats, grab some coffee (maybe the big mug today) and return to work, after all, it's Monday. Actually, it's Cyber Monday, so to heck with work. You've got shopping to do!

In November 2005, Shop.org, the National Retail Federation's online division, coined the phrase "Cyber Monday" to help create buzz around the sales increases online retailers were experiencing the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Cyber Monday offers online shoppers great deals, very similar to Black Friday deals but you don't have to wake up at 3am, stand in line, and wait 2 hours, only to find out the guy in front of you got the last $20 laptop.

To begin the Monday, ahem, workday, shoppers can visit CyberMonday.com and browse through the ads of 500+ online merchants offering special deals for this special day. According to Shop.org, shoppers are likely to find some great deals from a variety of online stores as,

72.2 percent of online retailers are planning a special promotion for Cyber Monday, up from 42.7 percent just two years ago.

Moreover, because more and more Americans have internet access at work, about 55 percent, online retailers anxiously await this year's flood of distracted workers. Offering deals like free shipping, free gifts and discounts on merchandise, merchants are taking advantage of the urgency many shoppers feel this time of year. In fact, Shop.org reports that

72.0 million consumers plan to shop online from home or at work tomorrow, up from 60.7 million in 2006 and 59.0 million in 2005.

Taking advantage of the online traffic from Cyber Monday and right on through Christmas is very important for online retailers. But how?

Gearing up for the Holidays
So how does your online store tap into the 72,000,000+ users that shop internet deals on Cyber Monday and the weeks leading up to (and after) Christmas? Not only would I recommend getting ads placed on CyberMonday.com, Black Friday Ads or other online coupon sites, but more importantly, set a strong and aggressive SEM strategy in place prior to the holidays so that come time for the big spenders, you're already there, advertising to them - full momentum.

Considering PPC advertising, search engine optimization, or social marketing (or a combination of) well before the shopping season sets in can be the difference between ho-hum holiday sales, and your biggest year yet.

Interested? Check out the following two white papers offered by Oneupweb which discuss what many online retailers are missing out on and the possibilities of social marketing prior to and during the holiday season:

• Secrets of Social Marketing Success: How 2007 Hot Holiday Products Are Being Marketed Online
• Internet Retailer Study 2007: Once Again... There's Still Money on the Table

Black Friday, Cyber Monday & The Holiday Retail Sales Forecast:

Posted by chip on November 23, 2007 at 01:18 PM

Well Black Friday is upon us again, and retailers everywhere are pulling out all the stops in order to ensure a successful holiday shopping season.

Whether you prefer to chase the black Friday door buster deals, braving the crazed masses that are bold enough to sacrifice a good night's sleep to fight the crowds for the deal of the year, or you prefer to do your shopping online in the comforts of your home - one thing you can count on is that your buying behavior is being watched with great anticipation.

In an attempt to predict the holiday shopping season, Thanksgiving weekend is looked to as a litmus test for how this year's sales will do for retailers of all kinds.

It's no secret that Thanksgiving weekend is the official start of the holiday shopping season. And while the shoppers that are out for the pre-dawn deals haven't started to panic in quite the same way as the ones that we'll see a little over a month from now, they are just as determined - determined to save some money on their gift giving.

Not that we need rising health costs, slumping housing markets or gas prices soaring above $3 a gallon to get in the mood for some savings, those things don't hurt. In fact regardless of the reasons, an ABC News Poll reveals that over a third of people plan to spend less money on holiday gift giving this year. I'm willing to guess that more times than not this doesn't mean they have less to buy, just less to spend.

Regardless of whether you prefer to chase the door busters like my wife, or you would rather sit at home shopping online like myself, you're sure to find some great deals. After all there was what seemed to be close to 5 pounds of sales flyers in my paper yesterday, and there are websites devoted to helping you find the best deals, such as BlackFridayAds, DealCatcher, SlickDeals, FatWallet, and of course we can't forget the comparison shopping sites like BizRate, Shop.com and PriceGrabber.

Whether it's because of convenience, a growing comfort level or the variety of resources available online - the number of people that do at least part of their shopping online shopping continues to grow year after year. In fact depending on your source, it is expected to grow another 10-22% this year. In fact over a third of Americans are expected to make a holiday purchase online this year with a total level of spending expected to reach $30 billion.

So just like every other year, the question on the minds of retailers is - how will sales look this holiday season? However, the question on my mind is - will it be black Friday or cyber Monday that ends up being the better gauge?

Microsoft's New Search Marketing Plan: 10, 20, 30, 40, fantasy?

Posted by mike k on November 21, 2007 at 02:04 PM

I recently read a story on Reuters about Microsoft’s plans to be “one of the top two‎ in web advertising within the next 3-5 years. Ok now that you’ve caught your breath after laughing for a few minutes I’ll explain why I think Microsoft has set its goals just a tad too high.

First let me explain exactly what Microsoft is hoping to accomplish with its 4 point plan dubbed “10, 20, 30, 40‎.

10: Increase page views on sites like MSN.com from 6% to 10% of total Internet page views.

20: Increase share of minutes spent on Microsoft websites, out of total time spent online, from 17% to 20%.

30: Increase share of online search from 10% to 30%.

40: Increase its take of all online advertising dollars from 6% to 40%.

The first two goals seem easily reachable considering the modest 4% and 3% increases respectively. Microsoft recently launched Live.com email addresses and the company seems to be constantly making an effort to improve its selection of free services (e-mail, photo sharing, instant messaging, etc). These types of new services and improvements to current offerings may draw in enough new users in the long-run to provide the needed increases for goals 10 & 20.

Now let us get on to the laughable goals, 30 & 40.

I am not sure who mixes up the Kool-Aid at Microsoft these days but I think presenter Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, had some spiked with “LOL Dust‎ just before he went on stage to present this plan at the UBS investor conference in Seattle.

Increase share of online search from 10% to 30%
The only way I can see Microsoft accomplishing this goal would be to purchase Yahoo. Reports have been floating around since early 2006 that Microsoft has been in talks to purchase Yahoo but they have adamantly denied such stories. Yahoo currently holds 23.7% of the search market according to the most recent numbers from comScore. It is also worth noting that new numbers released yesterday by Hitwise show Microsoft holding just 7.42% of the search market versus 10.72% a year ago. Not a promising trend no matter who provides the numbers.

Increase its take of all online advertising dollars from 6% to 40%
Again, buying Yahoo seems to be the only option to reach this goal. Otherwise Microsoft would have to increase its search market share by roughly 6.8% per year for the next 5 years. If buying Yahoo is not on the table I would love to know how Microsoft plans to grow its share so rapidly. According to Johnson, Microsoft is planning to invest between $1.5 and $1.7 billion this year on data centers and servers to meet the growing demand for its web services business. I hate to rain on Mr. Johnson’s parade but building more data centers and installing more servers will not result in 6.8% growth per year. Data centers and servers will equal faster searches and a larger index but that is all that is for certain.

Microsoft seems to be taking PR hints from Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf. I am referring to the ex-Iraqi Information Minister who made memorable statements such as, “I triple guarantee you; there are no American soldiers in Baghdad.‎ Outrageous claims like parts 30 and 40 of Microsoft’s four part plan will not be taken seriously until some sort of viable plan is presented to investors explaining roughly how they will be accomplished.

I have a few suggestions how Microsoft can “fix‎ its current situation:

#1) If you are serious about increasing your share of online advertising dollars how about whipping together an AdCenter editor? (ala: Google's Adwords Editor) Out of the three majors engines Microsoft’s setup is by far the most soul destroying to work in on a daily basis. For the largest software company in the world to not offer a standalone editor for its online advertising operation is despicable. It seems I am not alone in my disdain for AdCenter.

#2) Lay off the sauce and get to work on fixing your current core business, operating systems. Vista is a miserable failure no matter how you look at the numbers. Nobody wants to run it because it is expensive, it is SLOW, the licensing model is a joke, and according to recent reviews the SP1 (Service Pack 1) beta offers little to no improvements over current offerings. If your flagship product is a piece of junk why would you expect people to look to you when it's time to pick a search engine?

#3) Pray to the clouds above that there is another leader besides Steve Ballmer to head the company after Bill Gates steps down in July '08.

I’ll triple guarantee you that Microsoft needs to pull its act together or it will continue its current trend of over-promising and under-delivering.

Making Friends with Social Media

Posted by anne on November 20, 2007 at 12:20 PM

Years ago, launching a new website meant a couple of banner ads, print campaigns and broadcast spots. It all seemed to work just fine, and then it happened: things changed.

These days all three of those tactics have been relegated to footnotes in a website launch campaign. It used to be so simple; paying for eyeballs meant that you got your favorite pen out and your checkbook and wrote a couple of figures. Let's explore why that doesn't work anymore.

The good news is that old website promotion tactics have been replaced with an arsenal of new web marketing weapons that can be far more effective.

The bad news is it can be difficult knowing where to start. Nowadays, getting the word out means researching social networks like MySpace and Facebook to identify target audiences, building buzz on social news sites like Digg, and making the most of Google's Universal search results.

These online initiatives can reach a higher number of people than traditional advertising. The underlying assumption was (the operative word here being was) if you spent money, people would see your ad in the paper.

As an HR professional, I find that less and less traffic is generated from employment ads placed in print. People seeking employment or finding out "what's available" aren't looking in the paper. Why, just the other day, I typed a few simple keywords into Google and the SERP (search engine results page) displayed desirable job listings. To my surprise, one of the top three job listings was my very own job posting which has been placed on numerous job boards, message boards and various user groups' social blogs.

Both on Facebook and MySpace more and more companies are posting jobs on these social networks. If you've looked at any statistics lately, you will know that the demographics of MySpace users have changed significantly; the 30 and older crowd now make up the member list majority! Consider that a social network like MySpace has the capability to reach over 100 million users instantly. Even halftime ads shown during the Superbowl don't have that kind of reach!

If you think about it, social media has become the fabric of how we communicate online to share important messages, whether it's about friendships, feelings or products. Marketing professionals will figure out a way to weave their messages into these discussions very much the same way television advertisers learned how to weave their messages or advertisements into popular shows. The stakes are high because so many people are paying attention.

The time has come to throw out the traditional media plan as we know it. To see how social media is impacting holiday shopping, read about our new social marketing study. Or download the study, Secrets of Social Marketing Success, from our website.

There's no time this holiday season to be anti-social!

3 Reasons to Love Email Marketing

Posted by carly on November 19, 2007 at 09:40 AM

There are two sides of the fence when it comes to email marketing. One side loves it and has a strange addiction to it. The other, detests it. I’m almost positive that in the next six paragraphs I can give you a few simple tips that will convert you into an email marketing super-fan no matter if you’re the leery subscriber or skeptical marketer.

If you take a few steps away from your Outlook inbox, email marketing makes perfect sense. We love it when it’s relevant to us and when it delivers the answer we need. We hate it when it’s redundant, irrelevant and stuffing our inbox beyond capacity.

Here are three overwhelmingly simple tips that will get you on the path to using email effectively as a marketer and appreciating the email you receive.

#1. Pay Attention to Your Subscriptions. Marketers, Pay Attention to Your Subscribers.

Sounds simple – but most of us don’t do it. Next time you’re sitting at your computer screaming about spam and all the jerky, “wanna-be‎ marketers out there who are spending their day spamming you for the fun of it, stop.

Grab a piece of paper and a pen (or write yourself an email) and write down ten subscriptions you have opted to receive via email. Now multiply that number by five. Why multiply by five you ask – because you probably weren’t paying too much attention at the time you subscribed or thought you may really be interested in receiving additional correspondence from promotional partners. There’s your answer – this is why you get fifty emails on a daily basis that make you angry. You signed up for them.

If you don’t want them, simply work backwards and unsubscribe from those pesky messages you wish not to receive any more. The end result, fewer messages junking up your inbox and content that is actually useful to you put right under your nose on a regular basis.

Marketers – when you realize that your open rate has slumped into tenths of a percent and conversion is nearly non-existent, go boldly where no email marketer has gone before. Send out an email to your subscriber base and remind them blatantly that they opted to receive messages from you and give them an easy out.

The result will be a much tidier subscriber pool, soaring open rates, enhanced conversions and even more subscribers. How can that be? Here’s tip two.

#2. Allow Your Subscribers to Easily Forward Your Message.

You should always include a “forward to a friend‎ feature in your email campaigns. Always.

If you’re a marketer, put yourself in the subscriber’s shoes for a moment. You’re at your desk and up pops a great newsletter. One you actually read and interact with. While you’re reading it, you think of a colleague with similar interests and duties. So you hit the forward button in your email interface and your computer goes unconscious for five minutes and then crashes. Chances are, when your computer is back to health, not only will you never try to forward that newsletter on again you will probably hesitate to open it yourself.

Include the forward to a friend feature. It will eliminate this problem almost entirely and actually helps to grow your subscriber base without much work on your end. Engaged subscribers drive sales and spread good word of mouth for you. As a marketer, there is nothing you should covet more especially in the time of social networking and all things viral.

Email could very well be the beginning of your revolution if you play your cards right.

#3. Make It Relevant.

There are many ways to make sure that your email is relevant to your subscriber base. The first goes back to my first tip, keep a clean list and subscribers, use your due diligence and manage your subscriptions.

The second is to write a subject line that is eye catching and actually relevant to the content of the email. By eye catching, I don’t mean redundant use of the words “free‎, “new‎, “sale‎ or “discount‎. Also, I could very well title this blog “Lloyd Carr Announces Retirement‎ or “Brittney’s 42nd Night On a Bender‎ and get a much heavier flow of traffic coming to read it. However, at first glance most would click away when they realized my content had nothing at all to do with the young and shameless.

Third, be clear and concise. As a marketer you have to remember how valuable your subscribers are. They invited you into their inbox. Don’t waste their time once you’re there because guess what, they won’t give it to you.

In a nutshell, email marketing works for both the subscriber and the marketer when you run a clean operation, make content easy to share and keep things fresh and relevant. Go forth subscribers and marketers – make your email campaigns and Outlook inboxes work for you.

Communities are Social Networks, Too

Posted by erin k on November 16, 2007 at 08:50 AM

Social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Del.ic.ious are rather popular these days. It's no surprise, really. Social networks allow people to find and interact with people who share their interests -- something they may not be able to do as easily offline for a variety of reasons.

As the popularity of social networks increases and more crop up, the advertising world is quickly turning its eyes towards these networks, trying to determine the best way to utilize them.

Try this: ask a friend or colleague what a social network is. My bet is they'll start rattling off the names of sites like the ones I've already mentioned. Their answer isn't wrong, but it's missing out on other communities that can be just as powerful.

Those communities are the ones you can build yourself. They're not for everyone, but many companies could benefit from creating and maintaining a community. Such communities allow you to easily disperse information about your products to the people who use them, who can then share that information with others via the aforementioned social networks, word of mouth, bulletin boards, personal websites and blogs.

Before you go running off and trying to create a community, however, make sure it makes sense for you to develop and maintain one. I can tell you from experience that building and maintaining a community is no small task, and it shouldn't be done lightly. If you're selling clothing it probably won't make sense to create a community. However, if you're selling RC Cars, a community would likely be quite beneficial.

If you think creating your own community is something that could benefit you, keep the following three things in mind (there are more I could list, but these are important):

1. Have a way for your community members to communicate with not just you but each other, such as forums or a mailing list. I know this may seem pretty obvious, but you'd be surprised how many places I've found think that a FAQ, contact us page, and a latest news page means a community. Not to say that those aren't important to have -- in fact, you should definitely have those, too.
2. Don't let your community stagnate. You can do this by being active within your community. Yes, FAQs are there to answer questions, but users may come up with others not covered by the FAQ. Share tips or tricks with your users. Sometimes users just want to know there's a human on the other end instead of some corporate entity that doesn't care. Also, realize you'll need to do some moderation as well, otherwise you could get a few users who take it upon themselves to do nothing but be negative and nasty, which can chase others away.
3. Devote resources to the community. This goes hand in hand with #2. The resources could be anything from some time out of someone's day or someone whose sole purpose is to monitor and interact with your community. I recommend a person devoted to the community, as I can tell you from experience that trying to split your time between a community and your regular work duties can be difficult. When you have to split your time in this fashion, sometimes the community suffers for it. Which can lead to stagnation.

   Also make sure this person can be trusted to be a voice for your company. If they say or do something that offends someone in your community, it will be interpreted as your company offending them, and that can be hard to recover from.

So if you're looking for a way to utilize social networking online, don't forget: communities are social networks, too.

Content is King

Posted by alex on November 15, 2007 at 04:54 PM

Being a writer, I was absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to work for Oneupweb and break into an up and coming industry while still getting to do one thing that I am passionate about: writing.

However, my writing skills have been put to the test. Don't get me wrong I am always up for a challenge, and I knew that developing solid copy was part of the job description. I just didn’t know how important it actually was.

I have learned that if you don’t have content on your site that displays relevancy, usability, and also targets the audience you are looking to capture by using keywords and applicable content, your site isn't going to be found. In order for a search engine to offer it up to searchers as a viable reference to their search queries, the content has to prove itself. There are several different components that come into play when developing the copy of your site in hopes to achieve overall website conversion goals.

From a search engine's stand point they are looking for content that stands out and is directly related to the search query. Relevancy is a key ingredient to your website's success. One of the ways to increase relevancy is to target keywords within the content. However, stuffing pertinent terms around every other word is not going to do the trick. The selected targeted words should be backed up and strategically placed within the content that supports the main idea you are looking to convey.

Unique content is also an important aspect to developing copy on your site. Saying the same thing over and over and over again repetitively is going to appear redundant to a search engine, and if they discover duplicated content they will essentially throw out one duplicate or the other. Now you can hope it will be the other, but if the content within your site is unique, not only will the search engine recognize that but your site will also stand out.

Along with relevancy, your copy must also be reader friendly. While stuffing targeted terms all over the place in random sequences might seem like a good idea, it won't be very usable to the user, and the likelihood that they will stay on your site to get the information they are looking for is doubtful. Search engines also pick up on this, and aren't necessarily going to return a website to the search query that isn't readable.

Since my beginning at Oneupweb, my writing skills have definitely been challenged, but in a good way, and I now understand that in order to meet the overall conversion goals, get searchers to come to and stay on your site, as well as having search engines find your site depends a vast majority on the content you are writing. With a hierarchy of SEO options available, content is most definitely king!

Is Google Really Evil? A Second Opinion

Posted by on November 14, 2007 at 02:20 PM

Why is Google so unstoppable, you Ask? Because internet users said, "Mahalo" to user-centric services, leaving the other Yahoos staring out their Windows in contemplation.

Everyone in our industry has an opinion about Google, but the unavoidable truth is that everything Google touches skyrockets in value because they pass the value on to us in the form of ad-supported, web-based programs. Companies under Google’s steamroller are either wising up to the paradigm shift or finding flexibility hard on the bottom line. Either way, they all wish they would have thought of it first.

Before you mistake this for a Google advertisement, allow me to remind you that they do not own our souls yet. However, I do feel as though we should recognize Google's efforts to trump convention and improve upon the user experience, most recognizably by offering high-quality services for free. This idea of making people happy despite industry standards not only makes sense – it makes money.

Rewind ten years: Search engines are chugging along, providing links and pulling in some decent advertiser dollars. Then along comes an uppity upstart called Google, who rides in on a kitschy name, becomes successfully synonymous with “algorithm‎, and presents itself on a simple, user-friendly webpage. The rub? Google developed algorithms which offered faster, more relevant search results, thereby revolutionizing the search engine industry.

Fast-forward to 2007: Google is filthy rich from an exhausting decade of creating/buying Checkout, Blogger, Adsense, AdWords Editor (thank you, Jesus), Docs, Video, Maps, Earth, Gmail, Orkut, and so on, and continuing to provide them all for free. Yet they’ve asked for nothing in return.

Now Google begins to pry the Big 4’s clammy, greedy grip from the throat of the Telecom industry, pulling up deep fences to give us more options with our cell phones and service, and all the search world will blog about is, “OMG, Google is a big scary robot buying up the world!‎

Yes, Google will eventually own the world. Tough cookies. But realize that this is in the distant future, like after the war scenes in Terminator 2 future. In the meantime, we should be enjoying the benefits they offer and support their efforts to neutralize big business’ influence over our meager incomes.

"But Turner, doesn’t Google have a history of bad press and exploits, including Elinor Mills of CNET, the Church of Scientology, the Brazilian government, their Chinese search engine, and a myriad of lawsuits?" Indeed they do.

"Isn’t it a bit frightening to witness their unabashed scramble to collect and dominate all profitable personal information on the web, whilst their owners and motives remain shrouded in mystery?" Sure, yeah. We all have demons. I’m merely asking that we acknowledge the good, as well.

Look at it from my perspective: We all want a free internet with free media and free phone bills, but very few of us are motivated enough to create this digital utopia. Well, Google is the Little Red Hen baking the bread, and since we are not helping bake we should be appreciative when we get a bite.

What has Google taught us? To appreciate the free things in life. That when envisioning success to see the happy end-user instead of the Ferrari. And lastly, that you can turn any industry on its ear by taking advertiser dollars and spreading the wealth unto the public in the form of valuable tools that meet their needs of communication, education and fun.

If only I would have thought of that first.

No, SEO is Not Evil

Posted by andrew on November 13, 2007 at 04:28 PM

It was a sunny late-fall Sunday, and it was off for dim sum with a friend of mine and his good friend. Shortly before our arrival, we got the call letting us know that two extras would be coming along.

"Oh, man," my friend, who had met the additions previously, said. "These people... when you see them, you just know they’re boring."

As a scruffy-bearded, hooded-sweatshirt wearing slacker, I’m in no position to judge anyone. But we arrived, and it was apparent - immediately - just how right my friend was. Right before my eyes, two scruffy-bearded, hooded-sweatshirt wearing slackers, except they had proper posture, messenger bags, early-onset male-pattern baldness, and thick-framed black glasses. Indeed, the Twin Cities liberal cognoscenti.

The cast:

• My friend, a pediatric resident


• His friend, also a pediatric resident


• Her boyfriend, a public defender


• His friend, a Green building consultant


• Me, a mere PPC project manager

And, though I’ll never understand the allure of sharing plates with people you’ve never met, it was time to eat. Also, to make the requisite small talk.

"I save small children on a daily basis."
"So do I, and I help them make healthy living choices."
"I protect the less-fortunate from a corrupt and confusing legal system."
"I encourage the development of sustainable energy, reducing the carbon footprint of the greater Twin Cities." Slurp. "And, Andrew, what do you do?"

"I work for a web marketing company in Northern Michigan."

Silence.

Onto my stock answer: "Basically, I write Google ads for a living," I said, making my top-of-the-screen-right-column-of-the-screen gesture.

"So, wait," said the Green building consultant, "you work for a company that writes Google ads? That’s it?"

"No, I mean, that’s not it. In addition to those Sponsored Links you see, there’s another department that focuses on the main search results, on making our clients show up higher in what we refer to as the 'natural' results."

"Ahh, yes," he interrupted, taking a drag of his clove cigarette. "Search. Engine. Optimization."

Then he turned to the rest of the table. "Basically, his company tricks the search engines," he said, stroking his beard. "They send spam all over the internet, forcing us to wade through a bunch of garbage when we’re looking for information." He turned. He glared.

"Hold on," I said. "That’s not at all what we do. Not even close. And, actually, the things that that department does are pretty amazing.

"They talk to their client. They determine the audience that client is targeting, and, based on that information, they do some pretty extensive research into keywords – what people are searching, what areas are competitive, where our client can make an impact.

"And then they build content. Relevant, relevant content, focusing on the client’s keywords, and focusing on the audience the client serves. Based on this highly-relevant, highly-focused content, the client builds trust online. They draw links, from others who have determined this content to be valuable.

"And, over time, yes, there’s our client, atop the Google listings. It’s not dishonest -- the search engines are too smart for that. It’s certainly not evil. It’s just what happens. And it makes your search experience better."

"Wait, so you’re not evil?"

"Not at all. I’m not saving the environment, and I’m not saving small children, and I’m not protecting the underserved, but I’m saving you some time, and that’s got to be worth something."

"Wow, that’s amazing. Thanks for explaining that. Let’s be friends."

"No."

E-Commerce PPC Campaign Metrics

Posted by adam on November 12, 2007 at 02:37 PM

The cornerstone of every highly successful e-commerce PPC campaign is maintaining synchronization between the PPC campaign components. The areas that need to be regularly updated are keywords, ad creative, and landing pages. Failing to keep these campaign pieces up to date will kill your metrics.

I will provide a real-world example of how mistakes can affect your performance. The following analysis is based on monthly PPC spend of $20,000.

Baseline Example:

• Spend = $20,000


• Clicks = 40,000


• Revenue = $200,000


• Ave. Sale = $100


• Purchase # = 2,000


• CPA = $10


• CPC = $0.50


• Conversion % = 5.00%

Campaign with keyword flaws: Say your website has sale products that are being heavily promoted through PPC. When those products sell out, you remove them from the site but forget to remove the corresponding keywords from your PPC campaign for 1 week in each of the three major engines. The following explains the negative impact on your month ending CPA.

Product: The North Face Metropolis Parka

Example Keywords & Traffic:

• metropolis coat = 90 clicks
• metropolis parka = 150 clicks
• north face metropolis = 80 clicks
• full length north face coat = 50 clicks

Potential CPA Impact: Assuming that none of the above keywords will convert during this week, because the product is no longer on the site, the following is the negative impact of one week on CPA.

Keyword Spend:
(370 Wasted Clicks per Day x 7 Days x 3 Engines) x $0.50 CPC = $3,885

Change in Purchase #:
(7,770 Wasted Clicks x Conversion Rate 5%) - 2,000 = -398 Purchases

Change in CPA:
$20,000 / 1,611 = $12.41 an increase of $2.41.

If a $2.41 increase in CPA doesn’t look that bad, consider the negative effects on some other metrics.

Total Revenue:

• Baseline = $200,000


• W/ Errors = 1,611 (Purchases) x $100 (Ave. Sale) = $161,100

• Baseline = 5.00%


• W/ Errors = 4.03%

ROI:

• Baseline = 1000.00%


• W/ Errors = 805.50%

Spend to Sales Ratio:

• Baseline = 10.00%


• W/ Errors = 12.41%

To create and successfully grow campaigns, it takes a manager a high degree of attention to detail and great communication between the manager and the team who keeps the website up to date.

Facebook's Biz Friendly Ad Platform

Posted by keirsun on November 09, 2007 at 11:10 AM

This week Facebook announced a new advertising platform, Facebook Ads, designed to promote advertiser interaction within the Facebook community.

To quote the press release, Facebook Ads provides, "an ad system for businesses to connect with users and target advertising to the exact audiences they want."

The new advertising platform is delivered in a 1-2-3 punch:

1. Facebook Pages
Businesses and advertisers can use Facebook Pages to build a unique Facebook profile page, complete with video, audio, flash movies, reviews, etc.

Once other Facebook users have signed on as supporters, the business can send updates (company news, product upgrades, fun facts) to these users. These updates become viral via the user's news feed. There's no cost for creating a Facebook Page.

2. Facebook Social Ads
A business with a Facebook Page can use Social Ads to target a specific audience within the Facebook network. Through distribution to people who have signed on as supporters of your business and their friends, "Facebook Social Ads allow your businesses to become part of people's daily conversations."

According to Facebook, Social Ads are highly visible but don't blatantly disrupt the Facebook user experience.

3. Facebook Beacon
This third piece of Facebook's new advertising platform could be considered the most technical. Essentially, businesses can add Facebook Beacon to their existing website. When a Facebook user interacts with that website (makes a purchase, leaves a comment, etc.) that interaction can be fed back to that user's Facebook profile and news feed. Therefore, these interactions become broadcasts to a user's Facebook network.

Facebook claims that adding Facebook Beacon to your website is as simple as adding three lines of code to your source code.

While these 3 new services offer businesses a truly unique advertising platform to reach targeted audiences within the Facebook community, I can't help but wonder what everyday Facebook users think of these changes. Will skeptics jump ship to another, lesser-known social network or will Facebook users welcome the chance to have more control over the ads that are served to them?

According to Leah Pearlman at The Facebook Blog, "Ads should be getting more relevant and more meaningful" to the Facebook user. In addition, Pearlman offers some encouragement to the ad-wary Facebook user: "You will not see any more ads than you did before this."

Here's to hoping we can take her statements at face value.

The 2008 Presidential Race Online & Personal

Posted by bill on November 08, 2007 at 01:22 PM

Change of plans. In my last blog post I said Oneupweb will soon release, via our website, our new study about the 2008 Presidential race and how it's being fought online. Instead, I'll be introducing it in updated installments in my regular blog posts.

As I reported last time, initial data indicated that candidates from both major parties were heavily immersed in social media by the end of September. Here's a look at what they were doing.

Social Tools & Activities

It has been a contest of sorts - who can appear the most in-touch with the online social landscape. But it's as if they were buying a car based on the radio rather than the engine. The search engines, to be specific.

Although the engines are now indexing social media, there's a lot more to optimizing a website than including next generation media content. And we found in late September that neither of the parties' leading candidates was even minimally optimized for any keywords other than her or his own name. Few candidates registered a top 10 page listing for any issue in any of the four major engines we studied. Only one, John McCain, was positioned for another candidate's name.

Some things have changed since September.

Dark horse Ron Paul has emerged as the online fundraising champion through a sophisticated use of social media and a sometimes fanatical group of supporters who are posting so frequently that some major blogs have refused to take further postings from the group.

Paid advertising, which we'll discuss next time, is being used to supplement the lack of natural search with some interesting results.
According to ClickZ, Barak Obama's camp has preemptively asked to have their ads excluded from some sites. Adotas reports that other candidates have found themselves in some places they found embarrassing (conservative Mitt Romney had ads run on Gay.com; John McCain ads appeared on a liberal blog site.)

Accusations of online dirty tricks and black hat tactics are starting to appear, many revolving around Ron Paul supporters. And it's reasonable to expect an upcoming online free-for-all as things heat up.

Now, while you candidate spin wizards are planning your next foray into online marketing, may we modestly suggest that somebody go back and get the basics right. How about a little SEO, folks, so when searchers look for an issue near and dear to your candidate's heart, your website might appear a little nearer the top of the listings.

More to come.

Update: Read Part Two in our ongoing series about the 2008 Presidential Campaign online: McCain Buys Hillary. Mitt Buys A Bunch. Others By Stand.

SEO Tools - Proceed with Caution

Posted by duncan on November 07, 2007 at 09:16 AM

I recently came across the Website Health Check tool created by SEObook.com. Having been around this industry for years I am no stranger to the idea of tools that can help a webmaster or search marketer speed up their work. Most of the tools we use here at Oneupweb were developed by our programmers specifically for our staff to use. I guess you could say we have a proprietary tool set.

Our SEO project managers use these tools everyday on behalf of our clients. Our tools allow us to work faster giving our clients more value for the time we devote to their projects. If all of our tools were suddenly taken away from us would we grind to a halt? Hardly.

We pay careful attention to our new SEO project managers and make sure they understand the whole SEO process from the ground up. Our team knows their source code. They know how to go directly into a search engine to determine what it knows about our clients' sites. Before everything else, their brains are the ultimate SEO tools.

When we see that the new project manager understands the big picture we can then introduce them to the tools that will speed up their work. The project manager understands that their own internalized knowledge and initiative are the ingredients that help our clients in the end. Tools break from time to time. Only a trained project manager has the insight to realize a tool is broken. That project manager can continue with a project using different methods while they wait for the tool to be fixed.

The point of my blog is two fold. One is to say thank you to SEObook.com and other tool makers out there. You do make some people's lives easier with your tools.

My other point is to caution tool users. You must know how to read the data the tool gives you before acting. Any of us can go to Home Depot and buy the tools we'd need to complete an electrical or plumbing project. Owning the tools, however, does not necessarily mean we won't get shocked or flood our houses once we start the work.