This transition creates changes that advertisers should become familiar with, to ensure that the migration goes as smooth as possible, and that their accounts are ready to go when ad serving moves to the adCenter platform in mid-October. The Yahoo! Advertising Blog provides a list of changes to become familiar with:

• “Any balance from your Yahoo! Search Marketing account will be applied to your adCenter click charges and will be used towards your next bill.”

• “Currently, adCenter does not support Blocked Domains for search. Your Blocked Domains list will be transferred in full, but it will apply to content ads only.“

• “Ad groups that have optimization turned “Off” in Yahoo! Search Marketing will have it turned “On” by default in adCenter.“

• “The Yahoo! keyword Match Type of “Advanced” will become “Broad” in adCenter and the Yahoo! keyword Match Type of “Standard” will become “Exact” in adCenter.”

• “During the transition, full day targeting settings in Yahoo! Search Marketing will also transition to adCenter. However, if you only have partial day settings in Yahoo!, the full day will be removed in adCenter.”

• “adCenter supports descriptions of 70 characters in length. Short Descriptions with more than 70 characters will be truncated and the ad will be paused.”

There are many other variables that advertisers will have to take into consideration when performing the transition through the automated tool. Depending on the complexity and performance of your campaigns you may wish to simply start with a fresh adCenter account, especially if you know that your existing Yahoo! campaigns are in need of optimization. Visit the Yahoo! Advertising Blog and read the full transition checklist and feature compatibility guide before making any decisions on how you will make the move to the adCenter platform.

I just did a one word color association of road signs all the way down the rainbow. Why is the road system the only network using a color association system that can easily be recognized universally? Seth Godin just blogged about this subject in his post: Don’t Forget About Color while he was walking though the airport in circles. Seth asks: “Imagine how much easier it would be to find out where you were going if every sign with the word TAXI on it had it in yellow instead of white. Once you knew the color of where you were going, you’d just naturally scan for it.”

Take some time to look through your own website, communication pieces and signage. Here is a good place to start:

1. Does your website incorporate some or all of the colors used in your logo?

2. Are all the clickable links in your website the same color?

3. Is there a hierarchy in the colors you use for print work or on your website?

4. Does your company speak color fluently throughout the website, or are there multiple messages being directed that cause the design to feel inconsistent?

Of course, that was then. Today, thanks to Google, you can make phone calls and engage in video chat, straight from your Gmail account. And the good news is, only 1 person has to be at their computer. According to Google, you can now “call any phone right from Gmail.” So say it’s a gorgeous Saturday. You are stuck at the office, finishing up some work while your friends are at the beach. You have about an hour’s worth of work left, and you want to know where they’ll be when you’re done, and if they need any more beverages. Just click open your Gmail and give their cell phone a ring. And the best part is, if they’re on the beach anywhere in the USA or Canada, it’s free! According to Google, “calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan—and many more countries—(are) as little as $0.02 per minute.”

According to Mashable, one million calls were placed from Gmail in 24 hours (shortly following the official announcement last week). That’s a lot of phone calls…free phone calls.

So what do you think about the new Gmail feature? Are you going to use it to call your friends and family, or is it likely to be another Google flop (like Buzz, for instance)?

Just as managers know that their future and that of the business depends on data and information, so too do SEO professionals. In terms of an SEO project, web analytics are treated as a core strategic asset and to reap the benefits you need to manage as aggressively and efficiently as any other asset. This style of management should expose the area(s) of your website and web presence that can yield impressive returns for a relatively small investment.

Search engine optimization is not simply about rankings. It’s about putting your website data and information to work in unique and meaningful ways. At Oneupweb, that is exactly what we do. We manage your existing web assets to extract the right data, from the right place and at the right time, while making sure your web metrics align with your business goals. In fact, we have a track record to prove it.

Sounds pretty cool, eh? This is the mantra of Groupon, a social-buying site that allows users to purchase coupons (AKA groupons) for local restaurants, spas, retail stores and more, but only if enough people buy the coupon too. Groupon sets a minimum number of buyers for each coupon.

Here’s how it works:

1. Groupon offers daily coupons for participating businesses promoting deep discounts on services and merchandise in your area.
2. You purchase the coupon i.e. “$8 for Two Tickets to River City Improv ($18 Value)”. However, you only pay for it if enough people purchase it too, so sharing the coupon and inviting friends and family is important if you really want it. If enough people purchase the coupon, you will receive an email from Groupon with a link to sign in and print it. The coupon has instructions and a map.  If not enough people purchase the coupon, no one is charged and no one receives the coupon.
3. Check back the next day as a new business will be featured.

As of today, Groupon is not available in Oneupweb’s hometown of Traverse City, Mich—bummer—but several people at Oneupweb have been campaigning for its arrival.

Groupon’s fame has soared in the last several months as the service continues to expand. Recently, Gap partnered with Groupon for a nationwide campaign offering a 50 percent discount on certain clothing and accessories.

According to Inc., the Gap-Groupon partnership was selling at a rate of 10 coupons per second—Groupon’s biggest seller yet. Groupon’s previous record was 41 sales per minute.

Groupon spokesperson Julie Mossler told Mashable that “local ‘brick and mortar’ businesses are the foundation of Groupon, and that isn’t changing. Many of our customers have asked for a national deal, so we’re testing the waters with Gap. It’s a perfect back-to-school deal, and a great way for us to reach subscribers in Gap cities where Groupon hasn’t yet launched. Customer feedback (positive or negative) will be taken into consideration when we determine if we’ll do partnerships of this scale in the future.”

Do you have Groupon in your area? Do you use it? Please leave us a comment below.

How can so many of these recalled eggs still be sitting in grocery stores, restaurants and consumers’ refrigerators?  What about the numerous products that are made with eggs, especially the yummy baked goods that many consume daily?  Will products made with these eggs be the next wave of recalls?  I remember when the Peanut Butter Recall of 2009 started unfolding, and the long road it traveled as this product was re-purposed into so many other products with long shelf lives.

Each carton of eggs is stamped with a plant number and the Julian Date, which consumers can check against the current FDA recall list. With all of our available technologies, it seems like there would be some kind of means where these numbers could exist in some master database, and could easily be tracked right down to the supermarket checkout scanner. Don’t they have an app for that? Can the Google bar code scanner on smartphones relay this information to those looking?

It seems that they can’t even accurately break it down to what states might be affected, until people start falling ill. As of today, 23 states have received potentially-contaminated eggs, and I found out just this morning that our home state, Michigan, has just been added to the list.

But what if there was a way to track the journey of the eggs from the farm to the table? That is exactly what Oneupweb does for our clients. Not necessarily eggs per se, but whatever products or services our customers are offering online, we can track it with our proprietary analytics tool, ROI trax. We can prove right down to the penny how much your online investment is generating in terms of conversions or sales.

We can help your business weed out any bad eggs in your marketing basket by channeling your marketing dollars online into a format where every click can be measured and optimized. Our project management teams utilize our proprietary tools and search expertise to maximize the analytical data to strategically grow your campaigns and increase your ROI.

Oneupweb’s staff of seasoned search veterans know their stuff and have grown and adapted with the search industry since the beginning. If your business needs a hand in cracking that egg, give us a call! Don’t wait too long, or that basket of eggs can turn into a rotten stink bomb. And don’t let your business go through life with egg on your face, or you may be left scrambling to catch up to your competition as they start poaching your customers. The reality of it all won’t go over-easy on your financial statements when facing the hard boiled facts that your business may not be looking so sunny-side-up in the future to come.

But what if your business is eggs, or anything else that has or might be facing recall (or reputation) issues in the future?  Does your business have a plan for a potential crisis about your brand, products or services? Oneupweb can help you out there too, as we can help you track your brand in cyberspace, and be proactive should anything negative ever come your way. Check out our online reputation management services and the many other Digital PR ways in which we can help.

I’m very fortunate that I have the option to purchase my eggs from a neighborhood farmer’s stand, just down the road from my home. And to the age old question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I think that scientists finally have an answer to that.

The latest buzz involves how Google is displaying results for domains with a “strong user interest.” For example, searching for “Michigan State University” provides me with these results:

Of the top ten results, seven are from the msu.edu domain and three are from news related sources. Historically, if you performed a search, Google would present a maximum of two results from a single domain. Now, there does not appear to be a limit. According to Google’s Webmaster Central Blog, this update increases the likelihood that users will find what they are looking for within a single site.

IT’S ALL ABOUT USER INTENT…

Or having you stay longer on the results page, catering to big business or whichever perspective you subscribe to. Some argue that this will improve reputation management issues. Instead of receiving a mixed bag of results from different domains that might not be singing your company’s praises, different pages from your own domain may push the haters down a notch.

With any Google update, we can expect to see tweaks and adjustments along the way. As Francois de la Rochefoucauld quoted, “The only thing constant in life is change.” Even in the 17th century, Francois knew change is a way of life, which we can all relate to when it comes to strategizing our digital marketing campaigns.

Let Oneupweb guide you through the rocky digital marketing terrain with award winning online services. And as always, please share your feedback through the comments. We’d love to hear from you!

Completely ridiculous, right? Maybe not. We are in the throes of a significant transformation in how we access the online world. It’s changing the way consumers shop and the way professionals conduct business. Consider this fact: By 2015 the number of people accessing the internet from mobile devices will surpass the number of people who access it from PCs. As Wired Magazine puts it, “think apps—[it’s] less about the searching and more about the getting.”

In the next five years more people are going to be using mobile devices to check their e-mail, update their Facebook status and consume content. There are hundreds of thousands of apps available for download in Apple’s app store, and over a quarter of those apps downloaded cost money. That’s right. People are willing to pay for apps that work, according to the guys at Wired Magazine. And there’s new opportunity to engage consumers with branded apps.

But it isn’t just about the apps. The “old” rules for online marketing strategies will no longer apply. We don’t use phones just to talk. Online shopping has moved from the desktop to the laptop and now it is in the palms of our hands. And there are also Twitter, Facebook and e-mail to keep up with when you are on-the-go. Digital marketing is about connecting on all the touch points that impact your brand. And mobile marketing is going to become an even bigger part of that strategy. The future of online marketing is closer than you think—and those that get in on the ground level are going to be in position to soar to new heights. Is your business ready to fly?

We’ve had fun making apps that do cool things. We are a certified iPhone App Developer and we are ready to rock your mobile world. Give us a call, we’re here to help.

So, how can you go about calculating website performance? Our wonderful research team broke down all the website components for four very different industries (Business-to-Business, Travel & Hospitality, Education, and eCommerce) and developed the first ever objective formula for measuring website success. The formula can be found in our groundbreaking study Revolutionizing Website Design: The New Rules of Usability.

And you’re really in luck, because you can join Oneupweb CEO, Lisa Wehr, and Director of Operations, Tim Kauffold tomorrow (Tuesday, August 24) at 2:00pm EST for a  free live discussion on this revolutionary study and formula. The Digital Roadshow is an interactive discussion perfect for leading business professionals wanting to be on top of the latest in digital marketing.

It’s time to let go of that frustration of feeling blind when it comes to the success of your website. Relax and seek the opportunity of learning about our new method for evaluating and developing websites. In no time your website will consist of an equilibrium of creativity and usability. And, of course when you enhance the performance of your website, your bottom line is sure to increase.

Say goodbye to the days of second guessing if your website is bringing in sales, and say hello to confidently knowing your website is generating value.

Check out our revolutionary study before the session! As always you can submit questions prior, during and after the webinar. Go ahead and submit a question today!

As an ever increasing percentage of the population begins to interact with the internet from varied mobile devices, their expectations of how the internet will serve them will also evolve. The standard keyboard and mouse interface, already showing its age, will rapidly become outdated technology. Onscreen interaction (iPhone), predictive text (Swype) and 3d interaction (Wii) are already successfully implemented and widely acclaimed technologies that push the boundaries of how we expect to interact with computers.

Are you prepared to provide interactive content in a way that doesn’t require traditional input? Is your website accessible to people who are on mobile devices? If not, get a hold of us here at Oneupweb. We’d love the opportunity to talk with you about what we can do to keep you ahead of some of the seismic changes preparing to rock our world.