By Shawn Collins
Dec 22, 2006, 12:33
The third installment of the Affiliate Summit preview conference call series took place on December 7th, 2006 and it's now available via streaming audio or download.
Wil Reynolds from from SEER Interactive chatted with host Marty M. Fahncke, Founder of Conference Call University, about the conflicting advice out there on SEO and the SEO issues keeping you from the top of the search engines.
Marty then spoke with Kellie Stevens from AffiliateFairPlay.com about new quality assurance considerations with sub-affiliate transparency, cross-channel company layering in ad delivery and new behaviors by adware.
Download the interviews with Wil Reynolds and Kellie Stevens.
You can also stream this and previous Affiliate Summit preview calls in the archives at http://www.cculearning.com/summitreplay2007.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Google Releases "Most popular search terms in 2006"
Google released the most popular search terms that were used in 2006. It is amazing to see that no one is using any porn or gambling related keywords on Google...:)
I guess the top 10 keywords were all those junk words and this made them to remove all such releated terms to porn and gambling...
I guess the top 10 keywords were all those junk words and this made them to remove all such releated terms to porn and gambling...
Common SEO Mistakes To Avoid
By Joe Laratro, Chief Technology Officer
During the recent WebmasterWorld conference in Las Vegas, there was a session entitled, "Interactive Site Reviews and SERP (SERP = Search Engine Result Page) Quality Control Forum". This panel consisted of top representatives from Google, Yahoo, and other industry experts. The goal of this session was to have audience members volunteer their Web sites for review by the panel. This was a double-edged sword. While the feedback was priceless, it was embarrassing when spammy techniques were uncovered.
Every Web site that was reviewed employed at least one major spam technique recognized by the panel. The audience member’s usual response was that of surprise; they wanted plausible deniability that they did not know it was a bad technique or that someone else within their company was at fault.
Some of the top reviewed mistakes:
* Link Farms - almost every site had them. They are plain and simple spam. Penalties are given by the Search Engines for participating in them.
* Duplicate Content - A few sites had session ids, others had multiple domains with the same content, or multiple paths to the same content on the same domain.
* Duplicate or Unnecessary Meta Tags – Description and Keyword are the main meta tags recognized by search engines.
* Over optimized Meta information - There can be only one Title tag on the page. Alt tags and H1 tags should be optimized.
* Do not register domains that are trying to capture AdSense dollars in the same account that you register your main domain. Search Englwines can quickly tie domains together based on readily available domain registration information. It is undesirable to have poor quality domains associated with high quality domains.
* Do not use a 3rd party database to populate a Web site without customizing the content.
* Do not hide text. This is a poor technique that is very easy to identify.
Since the problems were reoccurring, the composition of participants was of interest. They were mainly webmasters, online marketers, and Web site owners. This group paid to be at a conference known for its high caliber of Search Engine
Marketing & Optimization information. Besides being brave enough to participate, most of them had a complaint about why their Web site was not ranking well.
Spam is spam. There are some grey areas of techniques used for optimizing a Web site, but the mistakes mentioned above are absolute no-no's. Inexperienced Web marketers could harm a Web site without proper guidance. The saying, "it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission" is not applicable to SEO. Spam penalties levied by a Search Engine can cripple a Web site's organic traffic.
The WebmasterWorld conferences are a great forum for communication between Webmasters, etc. and Search Engines. Answers to online marketing questions can also be found through reputable Search Engine Marketing Companies. MoreVisibility is currently offering a free service called “Ask an SEO Expert”. One of our Natural Search engineers will try to answer one SEO question about a Web site Free of Charge. Visit this page for more information: http://www.morevisibility.com/askanexpert
During the recent WebmasterWorld conference in Las Vegas, there was a session entitled, "Interactive Site Reviews and SERP (SERP = Search Engine Result Page) Quality Control Forum". This panel consisted of top representatives from Google, Yahoo, and other industry experts. The goal of this session was to have audience members volunteer their Web sites for review by the panel. This was a double-edged sword. While the feedback was priceless, it was embarrassing when spammy techniques were uncovered.
Every Web site that was reviewed employed at least one major spam technique recognized by the panel. The audience member’s usual response was that of surprise; they wanted plausible deniability that they did not know it was a bad technique or that someone else within their company was at fault.
Some of the top reviewed mistakes:
* Link Farms - almost every site had them. They are plain and simple spam. Penalties are given by the Search Engines for participating in them.
* Duplicate Content - A few sites had session ids, others had multiple domains with the same content, or multiple paths to the same content on the same domain.
* Duplicate or Unnecessary Meta Tags – Description and Keyword are the main meta tags recognized by search engines.
* Over optimized Meta information - There can be only one Title tag on the page. Alt tags and H1 tags should be optimized.
* Do not register domains that are trying to capture AdSense dollars in the same account that you register your main domain. Search Englwines can quickly tie domains together based on readily available domain registration information. It is undesirable to have poor quality domains associated with high quality domains.
* Do not use a 3rd party database to populate a Web site without customizing the content.
* Do not hide text. This is a poor technique that is very easy to identify.
Since the problems were reoccurring, the composition of participants was of interest. They were mainly webmasters, online marketers, and Web site owners. This group paid to be at a conference known for its high caliber of Search Engine
Marketing & Optimization information. Besides being brave enough to participate, most of them had a complaint about why their Web site was not ranking well.
Spam is spam. There are some grey areas of techniques used for optimizing a Web site, but the mistakes mentioned above are absolute no-no's. Inexperienced Web marketers could harm a Web site without proper guidance. The saying, "it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission" is not applicable to SEO. Spam penalties levied by a Search Engine can cripple a Web site's organic traffic.
The WebmasterWorld conferences are a great forum for communication between Webmasters, etc. and Search Engines. Answers to online marketing questions can also be found through reputable Search Engine Marketing Companies. MoreVisibility is currently offering a free service called “Ask an SEO Expert”. One of our Natural Search engineers will try to answer one SEO question about a Web site Free of Charge. Visit this page for more information: http://www.morevisibility.com/askanexpert
Google Steps More Boldly Into PayPal's Territory
"I think it's fantastic," Steven Grossberg, who sells video games in Wellington, Fla., said of Checkout. "I'm selling the product. Google is getting tons of customers to sign up for Checkout."By MIGUEL HELFT
Published: December 20, 2006
Steven Grossberg, who sells video games online from his home in Wellington, Fla., recently sent an enticing offer to 20,000 customers: $10 off any purchase over $30 using a new payment service, Google Checkout.
Traffic on his site more than tripled, and best of all, he said, Google picked up the tab for the promotion.
"I think it's fantastic," he said. "I'm selling the product. Google is getting tons of customers to sign up for Checkout. Customers are happy because they are getting a monster deal."
And Google is not charging merchants any processing fees through the end of 2007.
As a result, getting customers to use Checkout will increase profits, Mr. Grossberg said.
So starting next year, he plans to take some of the money he spends to list items on eBay and try a new marketing strategy: placing ads alongside Google's search results.
That is exactly what Google wants to hear.
When Google introduced Checkout in June, it was seen as a formidable rival to PayPal, eBay's online payment service. And with Google aggressively promoting Checkout during the holiday season and beyond, its use with some merchants has already surpassed PayPal's.
But Google's plan for Checkout has always been about more than online payments. The service is a calculated effort to expand Google's base of advertisers, which provide the bulk of the company's revenues.
And Google has made a substantial financial commitment to the service's success. Goldman Sachs estimates that Checkout promotions will cost Google about $20 million in the current quarter.
The campaign to promote Checkout also says something else about Google: As rivals Yahoo and Microsoft are working on getting the basics right in their search and advertising systems, Google is racing ahead to consolidate its lead.
"I believe that Google's advantage is widening with time and this is one example," said Scott Devitt, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Company. "Checkout could be a game changer, and the competitors are doing nothing of the sort."
Unlike PayPal, a full-fledged payment system that can be used to transfer money between individuals and can draw funds directly from bank accounts, Checkout merely offers users an easy way to use their credit cards. Checkout users enter their credit card information, shipping and billing address into Google's system. Then, they can pay with Checkout at participating stores without having to enter their personal information again and again.
Google says thousands of merchants are using the service. That is dwarfed by PayPal, which has millions of merchants and 123 million users around the world. In the most recent quarter, PayPal processed $9.1 billion in transactions, up 37 percent from a year earlier. While most of those were payments between eBay buyers and sellers, the number of PayPal transactions outside eBay rose 59 percent, to $3.3 billion.
Google has not released figures on the number of Checkout users. Still, there are signs that with the heavy promotions, the service is making significant inroads.
GSI Commerce, a company that runs about 60 online stores, including toysrus.com, levis.com and timberland.com, said that one in five holiday sales at its partners' stores through the end of November were completed with payment systems other than credit cards, which include PayPal, a service called BillMeLater and Checkout. Of the three, "Google is the biggest by far," said Michael Rubin, chief executive of GSI Commerce.
At StarbucksStore.com, Checkout transactions topped PayPal transactions by about a third, said Tracy Randall, president of Cooking.com, which operates StarbucksStore.com.
Checkout's gains have not necessarily heralded a PayPal decline. A Goldman Sachs report this week said that based on conversations with various merchants, Checkout appeared to be making gains against traditional payment options and that PayPal's share of online transactions was also growing.
Regardless, it is clear that the promotions have played an important role in Checkout's quick adoption.
When Google introduced Checkout in June, it charged merchants 20 cents plus 2 percent of the purchase price for every transaction. (PayPal charges 1.9 percent to 2.9 percent plus 30 cents a transaction, while credit companies typically charge about 1.95 percent and 30 cents for every purchase.)
Yet, to lure merchants to its advertising system, Google offered them $10 worth of free transaction processing for every $1 in advertising they spent on Google.
But Google recently got more aggressive. On Nov. 8, it waived transaction fees for all merchants, regardless of whether or not they were Google advertisers, through the end of the year. Then, on Nov. 27, it began offering Checkout users $10 off $30 purchases at many e-commerce sites and, in some cases, $20 off $50 orders. And on Dec. 5, it announced that transaction processing would remain free to merchants through the end of 2007.
In other words, Google plans to lose money on every Checkout transaction for more than a year. Yet the company believes it will be worth it.
"It's a way to incentivize more merchants to join our network," said Benjamin Ling, a product manager for Checkout. "We want everyone who sells online to be a Google advertiser."
The incentives offered by Google could benefit merchants and the company in several ways, according to online marketing experts.
Consider first that the ads of stores who accept Checkout are highlighted with an icon - a Checkout shopping cart. That increases the likelihood that users will click on those ads, which creates revenue for Google. What's more, once users click on an ad, the availability of Checkout makes it more likely that they'll complete a transaction.
In other words, Checkout generates more sales leads for online retailers - what online advertisers call click-through rates - and more of those leads turn into actual sales.
But the system offers merchants ancillary benefits, said Scot Wingo, the chief executive of ChannelAdvisor.com, an e-commerce services company that helps independent store owners sell on multiple online marketplaces, including eBay, Amazon and their own Web sites.
Google ranks ads based on a secret algorithm that combines factors like the price advertisers are willing to pay and the click-through rate of a particular ad. The idea is that ads that are clicked most frequently are those that users find more relevant.
So by having a Checkout icon that increases click-through rates, over time advertisers will have to pay less to get the same ranking for their ads. Or, they could pay the same amount for more ads with better placement, Mr. Wingo said.
"When you factor all of these together, it can have a pretty significant impact on your economics as a retailer," Mr. Wingo said, adding that many merchants are likely to plow any savings back into Google.
There are other ways in which Google could benefit from Checkout, according to analysts. Checkout gives Google detailed knowledge of its users' buying habits, which the company could use to customize the delivery of ads or search results to specific users.
And the system could make it easier for Google to develop a new advertising model in which advertisers pay only when a user completes a transaction, rather than every time a user clicks on an ad. This model, known as "pay-per-action," could bring additional revenue to Google.
Mr. Ling said Google had no plans to tie search results to buying habits or to use Checkout to move to a cost-per-action ad model. But he added: "If there is a service that is of value to consumers, we will consider it."
Not everything has been smooth sailing for Checkout. In the middle of the holiday shopping season, the electronics merchant J & R suspended the use of Checkout, telling customers that it was experiencing delays in processing orders due to the popularity of the system. And Ms. Randall, of Cooking.com, said there had been some "operational issues" with Checkout at StarbucksStore.com, but that Google had worked quickly to resolve them.
Google acknowledged the problems. "We have experienced some growing pains," said Douglas Merrill, a vice president of engineering at Google who is responsible for Checkout. "Whenever we find issues, we drop everything else to fix them."
That is in part why laptopsforless .com, a retailer in Anaheim, Calif., chose to expand payment options by implementing PayPal first, said Jeff Gardner, vice president for marketing and e-commerce. "We feel like we want to wait until the bugs are worked out before jumping into it," he said about Checkout. But come next year, he added, "it is our intent to offer our customers both."
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Google and Yahoo battling for every inch of search market
Wolfgang Gruener
December 19, 2006 14:40
Nielsen Netratings today released updated numbers of the U.S. search market. Google still leads the ranking with a comfortable lead, but Yahoo is not giving up easily.
The numbers released by the analysis firm hint towards a increasingly heated battle between the two largest search providers about their core business fields. Both firms outgrew every other search engine multiple times over the past year and were able to increase their market share by a couple percentage points.
Google has been approaching the 50% mark over the past year, but can't quite reach it yet. In November 2005, Google held a 47.7%, which has grown to 49.5% this
year. Google.com ran almost 3.1 billion searches in November 2005, according to Nielsen Netratings.
Click Here
The company has been hovering around the 49.5% mark for several months and while it is up significantly from 2005, its is slightly down from 49.6% last month. Partially responsible for an apparently slowing trend of market share gains appears to be Yahoo, which increased its market share from 21.8% in November 2005 to 24.3% (1.5 billion searches) in November 2006. Year-over-year growth at Yahoo amounted to 27%; Google grew the number of its searches by 31%.
Behind the top-2, there is little change. At least until now, Windows Live Search is having a small impact on the market. Searches declined year over year by 12% to about 515 million and the market share has now settled at 8.2%, down from more than 11% a year ago. According to Nielsen Netratings, AOL was able to gain some ground last month with searches increasing to 389 million (6.2% market share) and Ask.com
increased its rapid growth with a 33% jump to 160 million searches (2.6%).
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Google Looks to Expand Online Office
By Jeremy Kirk
Google is reportedly in talks with a South Korean software company and its US subsidiary ThinkFree, a maker of browser-based office productivity software compatible with Microsoft file formats.
ThinkFree is a subsidiary of Haansoft, which is based in Seoul. Haansoft's chief executive officer, Baek Jong-jin, said he met twice this month with the Google corporate development team that was responsible for the $1.65bn acquisition of YouTube, the English-language newspaper Korea Times reported.
No deal has been made, although discussions will continue, the newspaper said. A Google spokesman in London said the company does not comment on speculation. Haansoft could not be reached immediately for comment.
Google is mounting a challenge to Microsoft's dominance of the desktop office productivity software market, by introducing hosted applications that have the feel of a desktop program. Google's offerings, such as Docs and Spreadsheets, let users access and edit files through a web browser from any computer, with the files hosted on Google's servers.
ThinkFree's applications run in a similar way. The company's free offering, ThinkFree Office Online, is a suite of Java applets, downloaded from the company's servers and cached on the user's computer.
Users have 1GB of storage and can use ThinkFree's Calc, a spreadsheet; Show, a presentation program; and Write, a word processor. ThinkFree Office is compatible with Microsoft's Excel, PowerPoint and Word file formats.
ThinkFree offers a Server Edition for $30 a year, which the company advertises is a "fraction" of the cost for licences for Microsoft's Office suite. ThinkFree has a desktop edition and two portable editions, one of which allows the viewing of PowerPoint slides on iPod multimedia players.
Baek was quoted as saying other US venture capitalists were interested in ThinkFree if talks with Google ended.
- from PC World
Google is reportedly in talks with a South Korean software company and its US subsidiary ThinkFree, a maker of browser-based office productivity software compatible with Microsoft file formats.
ThinkFree is a subsidiary of Haansoft, which is based in Seoul. Haansoft's chief executive officer, Baek Jong-jin, said he met twice this month with the Google corporate development team that was responsible for the $1.65bn acquisition of YouTube, the English-language newspaper Korea Times reported.
No deal has been made, although discussions will continue, the newspaper said. A Google spokesman in London said the company does not comment on speculation. Haansoft could not be reached immediately for comment.
Google is mounting a challenge to Microsoft's dominance of the desktop office productivity software market, by introducing hosted applications that have the feel of a desktop program. Google's offerings, such as Docs and Spreadsheets, let users access and edit files through a web browser from any computer, with the files hosted on Google's servers.
ThinkFree's applications run in a similar way. The company's free offering, ThinkFree Office Online, is a suite of Java applets, downloaded from the company's servers and cached on the user's computer.
Users have 1GB of storage and can use ThinkFree's Calc, a spreadsheet; Show, a presentation program; and Write, a word processor. ThinkFree Office is compatible with Microsoft's Excel, PowerPoint and Word file formats.
ThinkFree offers a Server Edition for $30 a year, which the company advertises is a "fraction" of the cost for licences for Microsoft's Office suite. ThinkFree has a desktop edition and two portable editions, one of which allows the viewing of PowerPoint slides on iPod multimedia players.
Baek was quoted as saying other US venture capitalists were interested in ThinkFree if talks with Google ended.
- from PC World
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Google Code Search Engine Reveals SEO Blunders
Google Code Search is now live in the Labs. You can now search any published HTML code for keywords, HTML syntax and SEO tricks.
Want to see who is still using the mythical "revisit-after" META Tag? Try this search.
Want to see who is still using the mythical "revisit-after" META Tag? Try this search.
The Heart of Google's Wild Success Is a Home Page of Calculated Simplicity
Ever So Humble
Google Through the Years -- Google's Home Page -- Consistent Simplicity
Since its launch in 1998, Google has kept its homepage simple, limiting the amount of text and link options. This gallery shows how the Google homepage has evolved over the past 8 years -- a set of images that shows just how little tinkering the search-engine giant has done with its front door.
Since its launch in 1998, Google has kept its home page simple, limiting the amount of text and link options. This gallery shows how the Google homepage has evolved over the past eight years -- a set of images that shows just how little tinkering the search-engine giant has done with its front door.
Ever since Google Inc.'s famously spartan home page was released for public testing eight years ago, it has featured a prominent button beneath the search box giving users the cocky option of "I'm Feeling Lucky."
Google executives have long known that almost no one uses it.
But the company has no plans to evict "I'm Feeling Lucky," which whisks users directly to the top Web page matching their search query, even though this feature faces mounting competition from other Google services that could benefit from display on one of the most precious tracts of Internet real estate.
"If we took it away, there would be mass protests worldwide," said Marissa Mayer, vice president for search products and user experience. "It's part of our heritage. It's part of what users really like about us."
Google's dedication to "I'm Feeling Lucky" underscores the strategic value the company places on the look of its home page and its emotional bond with users, a fundamental asset that trumps even the temptation to promote more services or run advertising there.
As Google moves beyond Web search and becomes more like rivals Yahoo and MSN -- Google already offers more than four dozen product lines -- it faces increasing pressure to make every pixel on its home page count. Yet the button stays because it is considered an essential ingredient on a page that couples calculated quirkiness with stark simplicity in attracting, according to ComScore Media Metrix, about 82.1 million American visitors a month.
In user studies, Google loyalists volunteer that "I'm Feeling Lucky" offers a touch of whimsy and reassurance that the company doesn't take itself too seriously even after growing into a multibillion-dollar behemoth.
But Mayer said the button is used in far fewer than 1 percent of Google searches. When company testers have asked users if they know what it does, many say no, executives recount. When told the button will help them speed past the usual list of search results, they say they're still not interested.
Rivals have packed their home pages with flashy color and prose designed to draw users deeper into their sites and sample a range of services and products. At Google, the prized place accorded to "I'm Feeling Lucky" is especially striking because the company has strived to keep its home page stripped almost bare of words and graphics.
The home page was designed to come up quick and clean, with an elegance Mayer likens to a closed Swiss Army knife. Although some people were originally confused by the unusual simplicity of the page, unsure in tests whether it had fully loaded, users have chided Google over the years when they felt too much text had been added.
In the summer of 2001, Mayer received a mysterious e-mail containing only the numeral 37. Subsequent e-mails arrived with other numerals. Finally, when one came with an added message -- "Getting a little heavy, aren't we?" -- Mayer said, she realized someone had been tallying the number of words on the home page.
Google had been adding more text to the page, promoting company jobs, advertising and other services until the number of words had reached the mid-50s. "Users really began squawking at us," she recounted. Now, she said, "we're trying to keep the number of words down." As of yesterday, the home page contained 33.
Yahoo, by contrast, has been adding ever more features to its home page, from expanded e-mail to local weather to lists of hot movies and restaurants. "We're giving users everything they need to be efficient on the Web and, more and more, bringing it to one place," said Yahoo spokeswoman Meagan Busath. "Users really appreciate the breadth of services on the page."
Google loyalists, such as Simone Parrish of Bethesda, demur. Parrish adamantly prefers the clarity of Google's home page, which she suggested reflects a focused company mission. "Adding more to the page would be upsetting," she said. "I find a lot of other Internet portal home pages overwhelming. I really like not having all those other services coming at me."
Even what appear to be small revisions on Google's home page require detailed review by a team of engineers, Web page designers and product managers who report to Mayer. Their analysis draws on data collected from monthly studies of how test subjects use the site.
Google also runs as many as 10 subtly different American home pages at once so researchers can evaluate proposed changes. Decisions about the home page content are considered so consequential that Mayer's recommendations are forwarded to chief executive Eric E. Schmidt and co-presidents Larry Page and Sergey Brin for final ratification.
Since the Google home page debuted, features have come and gone. Services that failed to become star performers were booted off. The company's shopping service, Froogle, and its discussion forum, Google Groups, were relegated in August to a secondary menu, which can be called up by clicking on the "more" button. Mayer said they had not attracted enough user attention.
Executives have grown more selective as the company has matured. "The bar is higher for getting on to the home page," she said. Services should now attract more than 10 million page views a day and be used by a majority of visitors over the course of a week to retain home-page billing.
Today, the only features to make the grade and be included as buttons above the main search box are for searches of the Web, Images, Video, Maps and News.
Mayer contended it would be pointless to crowd the page with too many distractions. "We really believe people are going to remember only five to seven services," she said. "Educating them about more than that will lead to nothing but user confusion."
Google has also wrestled with how to highlight other emerging services as it has expanded beyond search, now, for instance, weighing whether to add the e-mail service, Gmail, as a button on the home page. Doing so could shatter the symmetry of the page because the other services displayed are all for Web searches.
This issue may ultimately be resolved as Google redesigns its home page in the next few years, Mayer said. The company expects to remake the layout, showcase some different services and change the way users navigate through the site. But she stressed that Google does not expect the page to get much heavier, instead limiting the number of words to a relatively svelte 50 or so.
Nor do company executives expect to abandon the colorful Google logo , which they gaily deck out for holidays. She added that these festive adornments, along with "I'm Feeling Lucky" and the Goooooooooogle at the bottom of search results and ads, are the spirit in the Google machine and will continue to be a sentimental selling point for a corporation that, ironically, built its success on the cold mathematical calculations of a search algorithm.
Source:
Google Through the Years -- Google's Home Page -- Consistent Simplicity
Since its launch in 1998, Google has kept its homepage simple, limiting the amount of text and link options. This gallery shows how the Google homepage has evolved over the past 8 years -- a set of images that shows just how little tinkering the search-engine giant has done with its front door.
Since its launch in 1998, Google has kept its home page simple, limiting the amount of text and link options. This gallery shows how the Google homepage has evolved over the past eight years -- a set of images that shows just how little tinkering the search-engine giant has done with its front door.
Ever since Google Inc.'s famously spartan home page was released for public testing eight years ago, it has featured a prominent button beneath the search box giving users the cocky option of "I'm Feeling Lucky."
Google executives have long known that almost no one uses it.
But the company has no plans to evict "I'm Feeling Lucky," which whisks users directly to the top Web page matching their search query, even though this feature faces mounting competition from other Google services that could benefit from display on one of the most precious tracts of Internet real estate.
"If we took it away, there would be mass protests worldwide," said Marissa Mayer, vice president for search products and user experience. "It's part of our heritage. It's part of what users really like about us."
Google's dedication to "I'm Feeling Lucky" underscores the strategic value the company places on the look of its home page and its emotional bond with users, a fundamental asset that trumps even the temptation to promote more services or run advertising there.
As Google moves beyond Web search and becomes more like rivals Yahoo and MSN -- Google already offers more than four dozen product lines -- it faces increasing pressure to make every pixel on its home page count. Yet the button stays because it is considered an essential ingredient on a page that couples calculated quirkiness with stark simplicity in attracting, according to ComScore Media Metrix, about 82.1 million American visitors a month.
In user studies, Google loyalists volunteer that "I'm Feeling Lucky" offers a touch of whimsy and reassurance that the company doesn't take itself too seriously even after growing into a multibillion-dollar behemoth.
But Mayer said the button is used in far fewer than 1 percent of Google searches. When company testers have asked users if they know what it does, many say no, executives recount. When told the button will help them speed past the usual list of search results, they say they're still not interested.
Rivals have packed their home pages with flashy color and prose designed to draw users deeper into their sites and sample a range of services and products. At Google, the prized place accorded to "I'm Feeling Lucky" is especially striking because the company has strived to keep its home page stripped almost bare of words and graphics.
The home page was designed to come up quick and clean, with an elegance Mayer likens to a closed Swiss Army knife. Although some people were originally confused by the unusual simplicity of the page, unsure in tests whether it had fully loaded, users have chided Google over the years when they felt too much text had been added.
In the summer of 2001, Mayer received a mysterious e-mail containing only the numeral 37. Subsequent e-mails arrived with other numerals. Finally, when one came with an added message -- "Getting a little heavy, aren't we?" -- Mayer said, she realized someone had been tallying the number of words on the home page.
Google had been adding more text to the page, promoting company jobs, advertising and other services until the number of words had reached the mid-50s. "Users really began squawking at us," she recounted. Now, she said, "we're trying to keep the number of words down." As of yesterday, the home page contained 33.
Yahoo, by contrast, has been adding ever more features to its home page, from expanded e-mail to local weather to lists of hot movies and restaurants. "We're giving users everything they need to be efficient on the Web and, more and more, bringing it to one place," said Yahoo spokeswoman Meagan Busath. "Users really appreciate the breadth of services on the page."
Google loyalists, such as Simone Parrish of Bethesda, demur. Parrish adamantly prefers the clarity of Google's home page, which she suggested reflects a focused company mission. "Adding more to the page would be upsetting," she said. "I find a lot of other Internet portal home pages overwhelming. I really like not having all those other services coming at me."
Even what appear to be small revisions on Google's home page require detailed review by a team of engineers, Web page designers and product managers who report to Mayer. Their analysis draws on data collected from monthly studies of how test subjects use the site.
Google also runs as many as 10 subtly different American home pages at once so researchers can evaluate proposed changes. Decisions about the home page content are considered so consequential that Mayer's recommendations are forwarded to chief executive Eric E. Schmidt and co-presidents Larry Page and Sergey Brin for final ratification.
Since the Google home page debuted, features have come and gone. Services that failed to become star performers were booted off. The company's shopping service, Froogle, and its discussion forum, Google Groups, were relegated in August to a secondary menu, which can be called up by clicking on the "more" button. Mayer said they had not attracted enough user attention.
Executives have grown more selective as the company has matured. "The bar is higher for getting on to the home page," she said. Services should now attract more than 10 million page views a day and be used by a majority of visitors over the course of a week to retain home-page billing.
Today, the only features to make the grade and be included as buttons above the main search box are for searches of the Web, Images, Video, Maps and News.
Mayer contended it would be pointless to crowd the page with too many distractions. "We really believe people are going to remember only five to seven services," she said. "Educating them about more than that will lead to nothing but user confusion."
Google has also wrestled with how to highlight other emerging services as it has expanded beyond search, now, for instance, weighing whether to add the e-mail service, Gmail, as a button on the home page. Doing so could shatter the symmetry of the page because the other services displayed are all for Web searches.
This issue may ultimately be resolved as Google redesigns its home page in the next few years, Mayer said. The company expects to remake the layout, showcase some different services and change the way users navigate through the site. But she stressed that Google does not expect the page to get much heavier, instead limiting the number of words to a relatively svelte 50 or so.
Nor do company executives expect to abandon the colorful Google logo , which they gaily deck out for holidays. She added that these festive adornments, along with "I'm Feeling Lucky" and the Goooooooooogle at the bottom of search results and ads, are the spirit in the Google machine and will continue to be a sentimental selling point for a corporation that, ironically, built its success on the cold mathematical calculations of a search algorithm.
Source:
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Feedvertising ???
Because an ever-increasing number of Web surfers prefer to read their favorite blogs via RSS feed (or email generated by RSS) rather than on the actual Web site, making money with your feed is crucial. So, if you want to monetize your entire audience, then you're going to need a way to make your RSS feed work for you.
Enter Feedvertising, the newest, easiest, and most flexible way to run ads within the RSS feed of your WordPress blog. Unlike other feed advertising solutions, Feedvertising is totally within your control - you can accept brokered ads, sell ads yourself directly, insert affiliate links, or cross-promote your other blogs. It's totally up to you, and the technology is completely free.
Take a look at this quick demo video to see how Feedvertising can turn your RSS feed into a great revenue source. It's completely compatible with Feedburner too!
Flash video: 5:21 in duration
Friday, May 12, 2006
Behavioral Advertising
By Jennifer Slegg
Behavioral advertising has been getting plenty of attention lately for being the next big thing since the advent of contextual advertising. Why are search marketers so excited?
Recent studies have shown that behavioral advertising converts better than contextual ad targeting. But there is some confusion about what behavioral advertising is, and particularly, what it isn't. There is also the concern about privacy issues that surround the idea of targeting ads based on individual user behavior. And with behavior targeted advertising being very new in comparison to the familiar methods traditional banner ads or contextual advertising, some people get nervous about being targeted with ads today because of a website they visited yesterday.
What exactly is behavioral targeting? This refers to advertising that is targeted to a specific individual based on that user's previous surfing behavior. This is quite different from the more common targeting method of displaying ads matched to the specific content of an individual page or to all users in general. With behavior targeting, this would mean that two people could see vastly different ads when viewing the identical webpage at the same time.
For example, the person who frequents sporting sites might see ads for hockey tickets or golf clubs on a page about the local business economy, while the woman who visits travel sites regularly might see ads for vacation packages or travel agents. These ads, while not related to the article about the business economy, are still very targeted to that particular user at that particular time. And this super tight targeting of the individual is what makes behavioral targeting so successful to those advertisers using it.
Studies have shown that conversions are higher when people are targeted through behavior rather than content because behavior can determine a person's actions. Whether it is looking at specific sections of an online newspaper or visiting a certain type of site more than once, those actions are used to determine each user's interests. And it is those actions that make conversions.
Advertising.com's study in October 2005 found that not only did behavioral advertising convert at a significantly higher rate than contextual advertising, but that CTR rates were also lower. Essentially, this means advertisers need fewer ad impressions to generate a conversion. And those users that click are prime for converting into a sale or completing a specific action.
However there are some significant obstacles that behavior targeting ad networks are facing, the largest being the implications that are associated with targeting individual users based upon what they do while surfing online.
There is a misconception that all behavioral targeting has the "big brother watching" aspect to it, which is not necessarily true. For example, today you might look at the online real estate listings in the online version of the newspaper servicing your city. And tomorrow, through behavioral targeting, you might see ads for mortgages or local realtors in your area. In this instance, the only personal information used to target you with these ads was strictly the fact that you viewed real estate ads in that specific newspaper the day before.
But exactly how are they collecting this data in order to be able to target the individual? The main ad networks offering behavioral targeting use a few different methods to determine this. And interestingly, often this data is gathered through the use of publisher programs, where webmasters allow their visitors to receive a cookie or image when they land on a site.
Tacoda's Audience Networks program drops cookies on participating websites. Advertising.com uses a single pixel image on publisher sites in the AudienceExtend program, and publishers earn revenue when their site's visitors later take action on a network site. Kanoodle's BrightAds Cookies program also financially rewards a publisher when the cookie they drop is later used to take action on a behaviorally targeted ad on another site. All of these companies have privacy policies in place that detail how their collected data is used, and publishers dropping cookies do not have access to any visitor's surfing history across the targeting network.
What will hurt behavioral targeting? The largest obstacles are privacy concerns and the protections people enable on their computers to ensure their privacy. This includes ad-blocking programs, not accepting third party cookies and programs or settings that automatically clear cookies daily or at the end of each browser session. Many spyware protection programs flag cookies, including ones used by behavioral targeting ad networks, as suspicious and urge users to delete them. This results in confusion by users about cookies and how safe or dangerous they really are and makes them less likely to accept third-party cookies.
Another problem of behavioral advertising is the inability to differentiate between multiple users' surfing habits on the same computer, something that is common in family households or with roommates. The woman who might have seen real estate ads might actually see sporting ticket ads because her husband checked the scores the night before. And this can decrease conversions, because while in actuality the targeting worked as it was supposed to, it resulted in targeting the wrong family member at the time the ads were shown.
Behavioral targeting is definitely an up and coming ad format, even though it accounts for a relatively small percentage of online advertising. Currently, only 8% of all online advertising is behaviorally targeted. But with current studies showing how well it works and converts for advertisers, it can only mean more advertising dollars will be steered towards this method of targeting.
And behavioral advertising is not just limited to image and text ads. Tacoda has just teamed up with rich media video advertising Tremor Network to provide behavior targeted ads inserted into online videos. So there are still new ad avenues to explore through this type of ad targeting in the future, as behavior targeting gains more ground.
None of the big three search engines currently offer behavioral targeting in their advertising platforms for self serve advertisers. Microsoft adCenter comes closest with their extensive demographic ad targeting capabilities. However, with all the buzz around user privacy, it will be interesting to watch and see which one of the three jumps into the behavioral targeting game first, and particularly how they handle the privacy aspect of it. But it is very likely that all three are currently working on the back end of targeting through behavior, even if they are not currently making it available on a large scale.
Behavioral targeted ads could also get huge exposure through the use of a large scale publisher program to display behavior targeted ads, similar in style to the Google AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network contextual programs, or within either of those two current programs. Mass adoption by publishers offering the space for the advertisements, not to mention the behavioral targeting an extensive publisher program could provide by gathering individual user habits for end ad targeting, could be the tipping point that results in behavioral ad targeting getting the exposure it would need. And with a publisher program displaying behavioral ads, it would drop the need for some behavioral ad targeting programs to pay a bounty to publishers to drop their cookies for the targeting to be successful.
Over the next two years—and particularly if Google, Yahoo or Microsoft jumps in with a behavioral targeting feature within their current self-serve advertising platforms—we will see a large growth in the percentage of ad space and ad budgets being devoted to behavioral ad targeting methods.
Behavioral advertising has been getting plenty of attention lately for being the next big thing since the advent of contextual advertising. Why are search marketers so excited?
Recent studies have shown that behavioral advertising converts better than contextual ad targeting. But there is some confusion about what behavioral advertising is, and particularly, what it isn't. There is also the concern about privacy issues that surround the idea of targeting ads based on individual user behavior. And with behavior targeted advertising being very new in comparison to the familiar methods traditional banner ads or contextual advertising, some people get nervous about being targeted with ads today because of a website they visited yesterday.
What exactly is behavioral targeting? This refers to advertising that is targeted to a specific individual based on that user's previous surfing behavior. This is quite different from the more common targeting method of displaying ads matched to the specific content of an individual page or to all users in general. With behavior targeting, this would mean that two people could see vastly different ads when viewing the identical webpage at the same time.
For example, the person who frequents sporting sites might see ads for hockey tickets or golf clubs on a page about the local business economy, while the woman who visits travel sites regularly might see ads for vacation packages or travel agents. These ads, while not related to the article about the business economy, are still very targeted to that particular user at that particular time. And this super tight targeting of the individual is what makes behavioral targeting so successful to those advertisers using it.
Studies have shown that conversions are higher when people are targeted through behavior rather than content because behavior can determine a person's actions. Whether it is looking at specific sections of an online newspaper or visiting a certain type of site more than once, those actions are used to determine each user's interests. And it is those actions that make conversions.
Advertising.com's study in October 2005 found that not only did behavioral advertising convert at a significantly higher rate than contextual advertising, but that CTR rates were also lower. Essentially, this means advertisers need fewer ad impressions to generate a conversion. And those users that click are prime for converting into a sale or completing a specific action.
However there are some significant obstacles that behavior targeting ad networks are facing, the largest being the implications that are associated with targeting individual users based upon what they do while surfing online.
There is a misconception that all behavioral targeting has the "big brother watching" aspect to it, which is not necessarily true. For example, today you might look at the online real estate listings in the online version of the newspaper servicing your city. And tomorrow, through behavioral targeting, you might see ads for mortgages or local realtors in your area. In this instance, the only personal information used to target you with these ads was strictly the fact that you viewed real estate ads in that specific newspaper the day before.
But exactly how are they collecting this data in order to be able to target the individual? The main ad networks offering behavioral targeting use a few different methods to determine this. And interestingly, often this data is gathered through the use of publisher programs, where webmasters allow their visitors to receive a cookie or image when they land on a site.
Tacoda's Audience Networks program drops cookies on participating websites. Advertising.com uses a single pixel image on publisher sites in the AudienceExtend program, and publishers earn revenue when their site's visitors later take action on a network site. Kanoodle's BrightAds Cookies program also financially rewards a publisher when the cookie they drop is later used to take action on a behaviorally targeted ad on another site. All of these companies have privacy policies in place that detail how their collected data is used, and publishers dropping cookies do not have access to any visitor's surfing history across the targeting network.
What will hurt behavioral targeting? The largest obstacles are privacy concerns and the protections people enable on their computers to ensure their privacy. This includes ad-blocking programs, not accepting third party cookies and programs or settings that automatically clear cookies daily or at the end of each browser session. Many spyware protection programs flag cookies, including ones used by behavioral targeting ad networks, as suspicious and urge users to delete them. This results in confusion by users about cookies and how safe or dangerous they really are and makes them less likely to accept third-party cookies.
Another problem of behavioral advertising is the inability to differentiate between multiple users' surfing habits on the same computer, something that is common in family households or with roommates. The woman who might have seen real estate ads might actually see sporting ticket ads because her husband checked the scores the night before. And this can decrease conversions, because while in actuality the targeting worked as it was supposed to, it resulted in targeting the wrong family member at the time the ads were shown.
Behavioral targeting is definitely an up and coming ad format, even though it accounts for a relatively small percentage of online advertising. Currently, only 8% of all online advertising is behaviorally targeted. But with current studies showing how well it works and converts for advertisers, it can only mean more advertising dollars will be steered towards this method of targeting.
And behavioral advertising is not just limited to image and text ads. Tacoda has just teamed up with rich media video advertising Tremor Network to provide behavior targeted ads inserted into online videos. So there are still new ad avenues to explore through this type of ad targeting in the future, as behavior targeting gains more ground.
None of the big three search engines currently offer behavioral targeting in their advertising platforms for self serve advertisers. Microsoft adCenter comes closest with their extensive demographic ad targeting capabilities. However, with all the buzz around user privacy, it will be interesting to watch and see which one of the three jumps into the behavioral targeting game first, and particularly how they handle the privacy aspect of it. But it is very likely that all three are currently working on the back end of targeting through behavior, even if they are not currently making it available on a large scale.
Behavioral targeted ads could also get huge exposure through the use of a large scale publisher program to display behavior targeted ads, similar in style to the Google AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network contextual programs, or within either of those two current programs. Mass adoption by publishers offering the space for the advertisements, not to mention the behavioral targeting an extensive publisher program could provide by gathering individual user habits for end ad targeting, could be the tipping point that results in behavioral ad targeting getting the exposure it would need. And with a publisher program displaying behavioral ads, it would drop the need for some behavioral ad targeting programs to pay a bounty to publishers to drop their cookies for the targeting to be successful.
Over the next two years—and particularly if Google, Yahoo or Microsoft jumps in with a behavioral targeting feature within their current self-serve advertising platforms—we will see a large growth in the percentage of ad space and ad budgets being devoted to behavioral ad targeting methods.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Next Google pagerank update on 25th May 06
Anticipating next Google pagerank update on 25th May 06
Google last updated on 18th Feb 06
Google seems to have expanded their differentiation between bogus links and earned links with this latest update.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission
Google AdSense - http://www.google.com/adsense - is fast becoming the preferred way for people to earn an income online. Forget eBay and multiple affiliate programs. Whether you are a work-at-home mom trying to make a little extra cash or an Internet entrepreneur with hundreds of monetized websites, AdSense is truly the easiest way to earn money.
Simply sign up for a free account, grab your ad code and paste it in your site. But here's the amazing thing - no matter how much money AdSense is making for you right now, a few simple tweaks can increase that amount considerably. And I should know, after learning about these tricks, I more than doubled my AdSense commissions!
The self-proclaimed AdSense gurus and experts are sharing this insider knowledge, for a fee.
Editorial Note: Some of the website AdSense examples provided below by the author may have changed since the article was written.
You can learn all these secrets from them, as long as you buy their e-book, sign up for their seminar or purchase their newsletter. But I'm going to share all their AdSense tricks for free. Here they are:
1) Color code your ads to match your web site palette "exactly". Don't use frames around your ads. Instead, in the AdSense code generation interface, make sure you choose the same color as your page background for the ad frame and the ad background.
When choosing the ad heading colors, match them to the "exact" color of your page headings. Use the exact same ad background shade as your page background. Use the exact same ad text font and color as the text on your pages. You can see an example of this color-matching on my Search Engine Advice Blog - notice the 4 link ad unit at the top and the skyscraper text ad unit on the left hand side under the heading Ads by Google as you scroll down the page? The link and text colors are identical to the color palette used throughout the rest of the page.
Near enough is NOT good enough. If you can't quite get the color matching right, use Google's built in color palette together with the RGB to HEX or vice versa color converter on this page - http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Style. That handy little tool was a life saver for me.
This is probably the one single tweak that made the most difference to my commission levels.
2) Try not to use the traditional horizontal banner style or leaderboard image ads because people are blind to them.
3) Use Google's own AdSense optimization tips and visual heat map to assist you in deciding where on your page to place your AdSense ad code.
4) Research competitive keywords using a keyword research tool such as Keyword Discovery or grab a list of the most popular keywords from various sources and use them in your web site pages where relevant. This article - http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/article.php/2156041 - is a good source of frequently searched keywords. Targeting popular keywords should trigger AdSense ads on your pages that utilize those keywords. The more popular the keyword or phrase, the higher AdWords advertisers are generally willing to pay-per-click for it so the higher your commission on those clicks.
5) Incorporate the AdSense code into your page so that the ads look like a regular part of your site. You can see an example on this Internet Dating Stories site - http://www.lovestory.com.au - where link ads are incorporated within the regular left hand navigation of the site under the heading "Sponsor Links". 6) Use Google's new 4 and 5 link ad units wherever possible. They seem to have a much higher Click-Through-Rate (CTR) than regular ad styles. You can view all the AdSense ad formats at https://www.google.com/adsense/adformats.
7) Place arrows or images next to your ads to draw attention to them. You can see two different versions on this search engine article library page - http://www.searchenginecollege.com/articles/article-library.htm - at the top (where a pointing hand directs your eye to the ad) and the bottom where 3 images draw your attention to each of the three AdSense ads.
8) Use the full allowance of multiple AdSense ads on each of your pages - 3 regular AdSense ads, plus 1 link unit. Use careful placement of these ads so they blend into your site and don't distract from your content. Clever use of this allowance can be seen on this page about bad Internet dating stories - http://www.lovestory.com.au/bad-stories.htm - where you see:
- 1 horizontal 4 link ad unit towards the top of the page under the first paragraph.
- 1 vertical skyscraper text ad unit about halfway down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links".
- 1 vertical skyscraper image ad unit down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links".
- 1 horizontal text banner unit at the bottom of the page with images above each ad to draw attention to them.
You can also include 1 AdSense referral button in addition to the 3 other units.
9) Tailor your page content to a particular niche or focus. Page content that is tailored towards a specific theme is more likely to trigger AdWords ads that closely match the content and are therefore more likely to interest your visitors and inspire them to click.
Don't create pages merely for the sake of placing AdSense ads. Visitors (and search engines) can see through this ruse in an instant.
10) Use custom Ad Channels for each of your ad placements, for example, "Top 5 Link Unit Blue Palette" or "Left Side Navigation Image Skyscraper" etc. Tweak, track and measure the success of each of these custom channels so you know what gives you the highest CTR. Some ad formats and colors will work better than others, but you won't know which until you test, test and test some more!
About The Author
Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena manages Search Engine College - an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.
Simply sign up for a free account, grab your ad code and paste it in your site. But here's the amazing thing - no matter how much money AdSense is making for you right now, a few simple tweaks can increase that amount considerably. And I should know, after learning about these tricks, I more than doubled my AdSense commissions!
The self-proclaimed AdSense gurus and experts are sharing this insider knowledge, for a fee.
Editorial Note: Some of the website AdSense examples provided below by the author may have changed since the article was written.
You can learn all these secrets from them, as long as you buy their e-book, sign up for their seminar or purchase their newsletter. But I'm going to share all their AdSense tricks for free. Here they are:
1) Color code your ads to match your web site palette "exactly". Don't use frames around your ads. Instead, in the AdSense code generation interface, make sure you choose the same color as your page background for the ad frame and the ad background.
When choosing the ad heading colors, match them to the "exact" color of your page headings. Use the exact same ad background shade as your page background. Use the exact same ad text font and color as the text on your pages. You can see an example of this color-matching on my Search Engine Advice Blog - notice the 4 link ad unit at the top and the skyscraper text ad unit on the left hand side under the heading Ads by Google as you scroll down the page? The link and text colors are identical to the color palette used throughout the rest of the page.
Near enough is NOT good enough. If you can't quite get the color matching right, use Google's built in color palette together with the RGB to HEX or vice versa color converter on this page - http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Style. That handy little tool was a life saver for me.
This is probably the one single tweak that made the most difference to my commission levels.
2) Try not to use the traditional horizontal banner style or leaderboard image ads because people are blind to them.
3) Use Google's own AdSense optimization tips and visual heat map to assist you in deciding where on your page to place your AdSense ad code.
4) Research competitive keywords using a keyword research tool such as Keyword Discovery or grab a list of the most popular keywords from various sources and use them in your web site pages where relevant. This article - http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/article.php/2156041 - is a good source of frequently searched keywords. Targeting popular keywords should trigger AdSense ads on your pages that utilize those keywords. The more popular the keyword or phrase, the higher AdWords advertisers are generally willing to pay-per-click for it so the higher your commission on those clicks.
5) Incorporate the AdSense code into your page so that the ads look like a regular part of your site. You can see an example on this Internet Dating Stories site - http://www.lovestory.com.au - where link ads are incorporated within the regular left hand navigation of the site under the heading "Sponsor Links". 6) Use Google's new 4 and 5 link ad units wherever possible. They seem to have a much higher Click-Through-Rate (CTR) than regular ad styles. You can view all the AdSense ad formats at https://www.google.com/adsense/adformats.
7) Place arrows or images next to your ads to draw attention to them. You can see two different versions on this search engine article library page - http://www.searchenginecollege.com/articles/article-library.htm - at the top (where a pointing hand directs your eye to the ad) and the bottom where 3 images draw your attention to each of the three AdSense ads.
8) Use the full allowance of multiple AdSense ads on each of your pages - 3 regular AdSense ads, plus 1 link unit. Use careful placement of these ads so they blend into your site and don't distract from your content. Clever use of this allowance can be seen on this page about bad Internet dating stories - http://www.lovestory.com.au/bad-stories.htm - where you see:
- 1 horizontal 4 link ad unit towards the top of the page under the first paragraph.
- 1 vertical skyscraper text ad unit about halfway down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links".
- 1 vertical skyscraper image ad unit down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links".
- 1 horizontal text banner unit at the bottom of the page with images above each ad to draw attention to them.
You can also include 1 AdSense referral button in addition to the 3 other units.
9) Tailor your page content to a particular niche or focus. Page content that is tailored towards a specific theme is more likely to trigger AdWords ads that closely match the content and are therefore more likely to interest your visitors and inspire them to click.
Don't create pages merely for the sake of placing AdSense ads. Visitors (and search engines) can see through this ruse in an instant.
10) Use custom Ad Channels for each of your ad placements, for example, "Top 5 Link Unit Blue Palette" or "Left Side Navigation Image Skyscraper" etc. Tweak, track and measure the success of each of these custom channels so you know what gives you the highest CTR. Some ad formats and colors will work better than others, but you won't know which until you test, test and test some more!
About The Author
Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena manages Search Engine College - an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Five Reasons Why Marketing Should Manage Web Content
Marketing professionals are responsible for the overall communication of products, services and brands. Because your Web site is such an integral part of your communication strategy, doesn't it make sense to put more content control into the hands of marketing experts?
Increasingly, companies are realizing that to maximize marketing effectiveness, it's mandatory to give some level of control of Web applications to marketing professionals. The rise of new job titles is one indication that many companies are getting it; directors of interactive marketing, directors of Web content and other professionals are bridging the divide between marketing strategy and technology.
1. Control online brand and message
2. Satisfy site visitors more effectively
3. Distribute responsibilities to the right people
4. Leverage knowledge of the customer
5. Enable marketing to drive ROI
Increasingly, companies are realizing that to maximize marketing effectiveness, it's mandatory to give some level of control of Web applications to marketing professionals. The rise of new job titles is one indication that many companies are getting it; directors of interactive marketing, directors of Web content and other professionals are bridging the divide between marketing strategy and technology.
1. Control online brand and message
2. Satisfy site visitors more effectively
3. Distribute responsibilities to the right people
4. Leverage knowledge of the customer
5. Enable marketing to drive ROI
Friday, March 17, 2006
Measure What's Happening on Your Website!
Measurement and accountability - is that the first thing that comes in mind when you hear search engine strategies?
As a matter of fact, the more sophisticated search engine marketing is getting, the more advanced the main themes of the industry's premier conference, the Search Engine Strategies conference and expo, are getting too. One of the main themes of the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in New York was the accountability and measurability of search engine marketing.
Submitting your site to search engines, making sure your URLs have been added to search engines and improving their ranking is only the very first step. Any pay-per-click campaign is only half-finished if you don't have the appropriate monitoring tools in place to see how your paid search campaign is performing. And not only that - with click fraud being a real possibility, you need to be able to identify any anomalies in your pay-per-click campaigns.
In order to justify any investment you make in search engine marketing, be it buying the services of a search engine optimization firm or spending money on buying clicks through your pay-per-click campaigns in Google and Yahoo!, you need to be able to measure the results of those online marketing projects. And if you are asking for more money to spend on search engine marketing, you will have to provide convincing analysis showing how the return-on-investment compares to other Internet advertising options.
It is no longer about simply getting any type of Internet traffic to your site, the focus is more and more on the quality of visitors that come to your website. Highly advanced targeting technologies enable you to communicate specifically with the target groups you want to address while keeping your advertising costs down. More advanced targeting needs to be matched by more advanced reporting and analysis. This sentiment was shared by AOL's Gerry Campbell: "The value of metrics is transforming other marketing disciplines, which are placing more emphasis on using data to target consumer intent and deliver relevant messages in all forms of advertising."
As a matter of fact, the more sophisticated search engine marketing is getting, the more advanced the main themes of the industry's premier conference, the Search Engine Strategies conference and expo, are getting too. One of the main themes of the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in New York was the accountability and measurability of search engine marketing.
Submitting your site to search engines, making sure your URLs have been added to search engines and improving their ranking is only the very first step. Any pay-per-click campaign is only half-finished if you don't have the appropriate monitoring tools in place to see how your paid search campaign is performing. And not only that - with click fraud being a real possibility, you need to be able to identify any anomalies in your pay-per-click campaigns.
In order to justify any investment you make in search engine marketing, be it buying the services of a search engine optimization firm or spending money on buying clicks through your pay-per-click campaigns in Google and Yahoo!, you need to be able to measure the results of those online marketing projects. And if you are asking for more money to spend on search engine marketing, you will have to provide convincing analysis showing how the return-on-investment compares to other Internet advertising options.
It is no longer about simply getting any type of Internet traffic to your site, the focus is more and more on the quality of visitors that come to your website. Highly advanced targeting technologies enable you to communicate specifically with the target groups you want to address while keeping your advertising costs down. More advanced targeting needs to be matched by more advanced reporting and analysis. This sentiment was shared by AOL's Gerry Campbell: "The value of metrics is transforming other marketing disciplines, which are placing more emphasis on using data to target consumer intent and deliver relevant messages in all forms of advertising."
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Use Google Analytics to Increase Adwords ROI
If you buy keywords on Google AdWords, you will want to focus your spending on the keywords that drive the highest quality traffic to your site and provide the best return for your business. By looking at a single report in Google Analytics, you can see the ROI for each keyword you buy, spend confidently on the keywords that perform, and drop the ones that do not. Here's how?
Link your AdWords account to your Google Analytics account.
Once you have linked your Google Analytics account to your AdWords account, you will begin to see your spending for each keyword, as well as other cost metrics, appear in your Google Analytics reports. By linking the accounts, you have basically allowed yourself to compare your keyword spending with what happens after visitors click on your AdWords ads. Behind the scenes, Google Analytics starts importing the clickthrough and spending data from your AdWords account while tracking all the associated visitor activity.
So, if you haven't done so already, link your AdWords account to your Google Analytics account now. It's also a good idea to make sure that autotagging has been automatically enabled. This allows each click on your AdWords ads to be automatically associated with the appropriate keyword and AdWords campaign.
One additional benefit of linking your accounts is that you can access Google Analytics simply by clicking the Analytics tab in your AdWords account.
Do your goals have values?
Wait! Before you decide to skip this part because you do not sell anything, let me remind you that this is an article on ROI. If your goals do not have values, you won't be able to measure the return on your investment. Your investment is your AdWords spending. So, where does your return come from?
Of course, if you have an e-commerce site, your return comes from your e-commerce revenue. But, even if you do not have an e-commerce site, you can probably come up with intelligent values for your goals. For example, if you know that 1 out of every 100 PDF downloads results in a $500 sale, you can assign a value of $5 to that PDF download.
If you haven't already assigned values to your goals or set up your e-commerce shopping cart to report revenue, this Help Center article will walk you through the steps.
Analyzing AdWords
The best report for tracking keyword ROI is the CPC Program Analysis report, under Marketing Optimization: Search Engine Marketing. In this report, the "google[cpc]" line item summarizes your overall AdWords ROI. Click the + sign to the left of "google[cpc]" and you will see ROI for each keyword you buy on AdWords.
If you are not getting any cost data (i.e. if Cost is 0) make sure you have linked to your AdWords account and that you have enabled autotagging. If Revenue is 0, make sure that you have either set goal values or that you have enabled your shopping cart reporting.
Which keywords lose money?
Click the + sign to the left of "google[cpc]" to see each of the keywords you buy. To identify the losers, click the ROI column header twice so that the lowest ROI keywords are at the top of the list. Do you have any -100% ROI keywords? These are keywords on which you lost all of the money you spent. But before you delete or pause any of these keywords in your AdWords account, consider how much you spent and whether you have enough data yet to make a decision. Very often, -100% ROI keywords are those that have only received a few clicks. You might want to wait until you receive more than one or two clicks on a keyword before you decide to cut it. And if you've only spent a few cents on a keyword, it's probably worth waiting to see if the keyword pays off. But, if you've received a large number of clicks and spent real money on the keyword, you will be able to instantly increase your overall AdWords ROI by deleting it.
An ROI of 0% means that you earned in revenue the same amount of money you spent. An ROI of 100% means that you spent, say $5, and made $10. In other words, you spent X and received 2X in revenue. It is not uncommon to get 300% or 400% or even 1000% ROI. These kinds of numbers simply indicate that your Revenue is many times greater than your Cost.
How popular are my keywords and ads?
The Impressions column shows the number of times your ad was displayed. The Clicks column shows the number of clicks the ad received and for which you paid. CTR, or clickthrough rate, is the percentage of time that a searcher clicked on the ad. These numbers give you a good idea of how frequently people search on a particular keyword and, when presented with the search results, how likely they are to click on your ad. If you want a higher clickthrough rate, you might consider bidding for a higher position and/or rewriting your ad so that it is more relevant to the searcher.
Which keywords drive revenue?
Click in the Revenue column header (you may have to click twice) so that the highest revenue keywords are listed first. The high revenue keywords may or may not be your highest ROI keywords. If your ROI shows that you are losing or making no money on a high revenue keyword, you may wish to try lowering your bid. Although you will probably receive less traffic after lowering your bid and probably decrease your Revenue, the decrease in CPC (cost-per-click) will increase your ROI.
Google Analytics is your feedback tool.
By keeping your eye on the CPC Program Analysis report, you will be able to see how effectively you are using AdWords to drive your bottom line. By making small changes to the keywords you buy, the amount you bid, and your ad text, and tracking the effect of these changes, you will be able to optimize your AdWords campaigns for maximum ROI.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Bigdaddy: Big changes on Google to come
Google has announced a major update that will affect the ranking of web pages in Google's index. In contrast to the usual algorithm updates, this update will be much bigger because it changes the way Google works behind the scenes. Google has given the update the name "Bigdaddy".
The BigDaddy is Google's next "dance datacenter" that they have been working on. When it's live, it will be the "BigDaddy Google Dance". Matt said on Jan 4th that it'll go live in a month or 2. As Matt said:
"...I do expect Bigdaddy to become the default source of web results. The length of the transition will depend on lots of different issues. Right now I'm guessing 1-2 months, but if I find out more specifics I'll let you know..."
What is Google's Bigdaddy update?
Google uses a network of data centers with different IP addresses to answer search queries. These decentralized servers share the workload of indexing web sites.
The upcoming Bigdaddy update is not an algorithm update but a change in Google's data center infrastructure. It contains new code for sorting and examining web pages. According to Google's search engineer Matt Cutts, the update will be live in February or March.
Less spam, more content and a new Google spider?
Google is updating the data center infrastructure to handle potential spam problems such as 302 redirections or canonical URLs more efficiently. In addition, the new infrastructure will allow Google to develop more advanced algorithms and larger databases.
Another reason for the new data center infrastructure is that Google wants to be able to index different content types. Google is now testing a new search engine spider that is based on the Mozilla browser.
The new spider should be able to index more than traditional search engine spiders, possibly links within images, JavaScripts or Flash files.
How can you test how Bigdaddy will affect your rankings?
Some Google data centers that use the new Bigdaddy system are already online. For example, if you go to 66.249.93.104 you can test Google's new data center.
The BigDaddy is Google's next "dance datacenter" that they have been working on. When it's live, it will be the "BigDaddy Google Dance". Matt said on Jan 4th that it'll go live in a month or 2. As Matt said:
"...I do expect Bigdaddy to become the default source of web results. The length of the transition will depend on lots of different issues. Right now I'm guessing 1-2 months, but if I find out more specifics I'll let you know..."
What is Google's Bigdaddy update?
Google uses a network of data centers with different IP addresses to answer search queries. These decentralized servers share the workload of indexing web sites.
The upcoming Bigdaddy update is not an algorithm update but a change in Google's data center infrastructure. It contains new code for sorting and examining web pages. According to Google's search engineer Matt Cutts, the update will be live in February or March.
Less spam, more content and a new Google spider?
Google is updating the data center infrastructure to handle potential spam problems such as 302 redirections or canonical URLs more efficiently. In addition, the new infrastructure will allow Google to develop more advanced algorithms and larger databases.
Another reason for the new data center infrastructure is that Google wants to be able to index different content types. Google is now testing a new search engine spider that is based on the Mozilla browser.
The new spider should be able to index more than traditional search engine spiders, possibly links within images, JavaScripts or Flash files.
How can you test how Bigdaddy will affect your rankings?
Some Google data centers that use the new Bigdaddy system are already online. For example, if you go to 66.249.93.104 you can test Google's new data center.
Can online press releases really increase your search engine rankings?
What are online press releases?
Online press releases are normal press releases that are distributed through the Internet. Popular online press release services are PRWeb and PRLeap. These services list your press release on their web sites and on a number of partner web sites.
Some people think that the links in these press releases can help the link popularity of a web site and thus increase the search engine rankings of a site.
What does Google say about online press releases?
Matt Cutts is the person in charge for fighting search engine spam on Google. He says the following about press releases and high rankings in his blog:
"A legit press release can get you written up by reporters, or editors/sites may subsequently choose to link to your site. But the actual content of the press release itself does not directly affect a site. For example, those hyperlinks do not help [the web site in the press release] in Google."
What does this mean to your web site?
Online press releases do not hurt your search engine rankings. However, they also do not increase your rankings (if no one writes about your business). The press release alone and its distribution on various web sites has no effect on your placement in search engines.
If you do not have something people really want to hear then do not send a press release. You should only use press release services if you have something newsworthy to say. If you have an interesting press release then your web site can be mentioned on many other sites.
What can you do if you do not have any news for a press release?
Press releases are not the only way to attract links to your site. The best links to your site are links from related sites that recommend your web site in the normal text.
25 Things Danny Sullivan "Hates" About Google
Search Engine Watch editor Danny Sullivan is regarded by most as the senior search journalist. Here he writes as to why he hates Google.
"25 Things I Hate About Google"
Keyword Research : : An effective tool for Search Engine Optimization
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword Research can be defined as choosing the words, which describe your product or service as, seen from the viewpoint of your target market is the most important step in the optimisation process.
Keyword Research is the process of defining the right mix of keywords, which are most likely to be used by potential customers at search engines and directories.
This Keyword research consists of a variety of inputs, both qualitative and quantitative, both creative and analytical. Keyword Research plays a crucial role in assuring that your prospective customers will find you when they are looking for your specific products and services.
Top Tips for Effective Keyword Research
Tip 1 - Start with a goal in mind
As with all marketing efforts you should have a goal for what you are trying to achieve. Whether it is to increase sales, gain newsletter subscribers, or get new prospect leads, this goal will help to set priorities keyword phrase selection and impact the overall success of your Search Engine Optimization efforts. Take the time to discuss and establish goals and priorities at the start.
Tip 2 - Think like a Prospective Customer
When it comes to search sites, it is the prospective customer who initiates the dialog (query) so it is important that you select keyword phrases that reflect what a prospective customer will enter in at the search site. Users often enter phrases are the legal or proper terms for a product or service, and sometimes the phrases they enter may be totally outside industry jargon. In either case, be sure to select keywords that are naturally intuitive to the customer.
Tip 3 - Brainstorm
Brainstorming is a great way to start generating a list of possible keyword phrases. The brainstorming group should include those with direct customer access (sales reps, customer support representatives, product/content experts, and marketing - do not forget to review your own log files for additional data). Try to generate as many words as possible and then narrow your list quantitatively using industry tools and qualitatively using your industry knowledge. When you brainstorm, remember to step out of yourself and into the mindset of the prospective customer.
Tip 4 - Check your Content for Keywords
If the Keywords you optimize for are not used within the copy of your site, you will not be able to get rankings for those terms. Once you have established a list of keywords, review your site. Be prepared to add new content to your site that can be optimized to support the new mix of Keywords.
Tip 5 - Goal is Conversions not Traffic
The goal of Search Engine Optimization, and your keyword research, is not to just get traffic, but to get valuable, 'qualified' traffic that can lead to actual conversions. You will find the different keyword phrases have a large difference in conversion rates and value for your site. Do not forget that increased revenues will be the ultimate measure of your success.
Tip 6 - Avoid short, common phrases
Short phrases (1 or 2 words) that are also common phrases can be too general and are not the best to optimize for. Common phrases can lead to a large portion of the traffic that is searching on similar terms but not looking for your product or service. The amount of time and effort needed to gain valuable rankings and traffic for those phrases will also be much greater than the time required for more targeted keyword phrases. Targeted keyword phrases may generate slightly less overall traffic, but with targeted keywords you will achieve 'qualified' traffic - leading to increased revenues.
Tip 7 - Keyword Research is an ongoing process
Keyword research is a continuous process. Whatever you do, do not stop. As your SEO program progresses, examine what words perform best, enhance your keyword list based on what you learn, go back and review old keyword ideas against current data and usage trends, and continue to review your site content for synergy with your keyword list. Ongoing keyword/Keyword research will uncover new keyword phrases, while keeping you abreast of your competition, and shifts in the search site industry.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Link Building Tips
These days even the most hardcore SEO copywriter must know somewhere deep inside that on-page SEO elements are a tiny part of Google's ranking algorithm. The heart of Google's ranking algorithm is - and will remain - anchor text and inbound links.
One link per linking domain
Instead of site wide links, try getting just one or two links from those websites that choose to link to yours.
It's hard to resist the temptation to get those site wide links, but site wide links aren't exactly a normal linking pattern and may raise a red flag with Big Brother Google.
Fewer Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal links are easy to detect and may be subject to negative valuation. Try to keep your reciprocal links under 5% of your total linkage.
Varied Anchor Text
Use variations of your keywords in your anchor text. Using the exact same anchor text in the majority of your links may raise red flags insofar as natually occurring links tend to not use identical anchor text.
Varied IP's
Using dozens or even hundreds of domains on your own server and on a single Class C IP Block to create link popularity for yourself is so 2004. Move on. The search engines have figured this one out.
Related Links
If you want to rank for Web Marketing, get links from pages that talk about web marketing. Better yet, get links from pages that have web marketing in the title of the page. It works.
Link Acquisition Strategies
Submit to the major directories, such as DMOZ and Yahoo. These links may actually drive some traffic.
Second Tier Directories
There are hundreds of second tier web directories out there. Submission is sometimes just $20 or $30, so you really can't go wrong. Only pay if it's a one time fee.
Free Directories
One of the nicer things on the Internet is a free submission web directory. There are hundreds of these web directories, usually generating revenue by displaying Adsense ads. Go submit. Now. You can read the rest of this later.
Topical Directories
One of the better quality links that may give you targeted traffic is a listing in a topical web directory. If you sell widgets, go over to widget-world.com and get listing.
Related Sites
Do a search on your favorite search engine. Note the top ten websites ranking for your search term. Offer these website owners a small annual fee to have your link appear on the index pages of their websites.
Reciprocal Linking
Exchange links with a few of the better quality sites which deal with the same topics as your website.
Press Releases
New product line? Company going public? Acquired another company? Any newsworthy event you may have, do a press release and submit it through PRweb.com.
Link Conducive Content
Create useful informational pages which attract links. Offer a free tool, or advice. Forums often attract free links.
Free Stuff in Exchange for Links
Ever wonder how phpBB.com got a PageRank of ten? They gave away a script for free, with a link back to phpBB on every page. We gave away free hosting and saw some sweet PR, too.
Paid Stuff in Exchange for Links
The vast majority of vBulletin's backlinks come from paying customers using their software. Ask your customers, politely, for a link.
It doesn't have to be web related, either. Even if you sell lumber, you can ask your contractor/customers to link back to your website from theirs.
Writing Articles
Write articles. Include a link in your byline. Offer articles to related websites. Voila. Linkage.
Writing Testimonials
One great way to get links and make people happy is to give other webmasters testimonials. Do you like your web host? Neither do I, but it doesn't stop me from offering a testimonial to my web host which includes a link back to my website.
Blogs & Forums
Contribute intelligently to blog or forum discussions. Include a link to your website in your signature.
Free Hosted Doorway Pages
Create a two or three page doorway site on Geocities. Include your keywords in the page titles. Include several links to your real website with your keywords in the anchor text. Provide doorway pages with limited number of links from dubious sources.
Natural Linkage
Whatever you do, do it bigger and better than the other guys. Create content that is genuinely useful, and the links will come natually.
Top 10 search engines
The Nielsen/NetRatings report which analyzed the top 10 search engines for November 2005 found Google Search to be the leader in this field capturing 46% of all searches.
During 2005 a staggering 2,365,998,000 searches were made using Google making it to be the Topper.
In second place was Yahoo! Search with only 23%, half that of Google Search.
It seems that Google Search is clearly head and shoulders above the competition.
The rest of the search engine pie was shared sparingly amoung the other players.
MSN Search came in third with 11% followed by AOL Search with 6.9%.
Fifth and sixth place were closely contested with My Way Search just ahead with 2.5% followed by Ask Jeeves Search at 2.3%.
There was very little in it for the last three spots with Earthlink, Dogpile.com and Netscape tie for seventh, eigth and ninth places.
iWon Search just made it into the top 10 at 0.5% of the 5.1 billion searches recorded in November last year.
According to Ken Cassar, a chief analyst for Nielsen/NetRatings, the rankings have remained stable over the past few months.
"The top five players have held their respective positions for the past six months, demonstrating the benefits of incumbency in the search arena," said Cassar.
Google Search has once again proved to dominate the search engine market.
But competition is heating up as companies start to develop search engines with a local flavour.
Recently South Africa witnessed a flourish in the local search engine industry with Funnel, eSearch and Jonga attempting to capture the South African audience.
Only time will tell if a close rival for Google Search will emerge, but for now Google is King.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
How Search Engines Work?
The term "search engine" is often used generically to describe both crawler-based search engines and human-powered directories. These two types of search engines gather their listings in radically different ways.
Crawler-Based Search Engines
Crawler-based search engines, such as Google, create their listings automatically. They "crawl" or "spider" the web, then people search through what they have found.
If you change your web pages, crawler-based search engines eventually find these changes, and that can affect how you are listed. Page titles, body copy and other elements all play a role.
Human-Powered Directories
A human-powered directory, such as the Open Directory, depends on humans for its listings. You submit a short description to the directory for your entire site, or editors write one for sites they review. A search looks for matches only in the descriptions submitted.
Changing your web pages has no effect on your listing. Things that are useful for improving a listing with a search engine have nothing to do with improving a listing in a directory. The only exception is that a good site, with good content, might be more likely to get reviewed for free than a poor site.
"Hybrid Search Engines" Or Mixed Results
In the web's early days, it used to be that a search engine either presented crawler-based results or human-powered listings. Today, it extremely common for both types of results to be presented. Usually, a hybrid search engine will favor one type of listings over another. For example, MSN Search is more likely to present human-powered listings from LookSmart. However, it does also present crawler-based results (as provided by Inktomi), especially for more obscure queries.
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