In the last week and a half I've had a handful of messages show up in Outlook that serve as prime examples of how not to approach another business via email. The notes vary in purpose from seeking links to...
Return on Investment is one of the most talked about concepts in the realm of online marketing. Blogs and discussion forums are devoted to helping businesses learn how to judge the ROI of their search campaigns, their email campaigns, their...
by Tracey Simpson - The pay per click advertising arena is a complex place. As a Google adwords advertiser you compete in an auction every time a keyword prompts your ad to be shown. Unfortunately, many advertisers do not realise...
Just because you think you know a thing or two about search engine optimization and online marketing doesn't mean there isn't a little bit of room to learn. That's what Shari Thurow explains today in her ClickZ article: SEO Epiphanies....
Earlier this week I wrote an article about using Yelp to help market your brick and mortar business. The next day, I had an email from a reader asking if I knew what the most popular local search terms was....
Back in April, I wrote about Google's new "pay-per-action" ads. The ads were designed to work through Google's existing AdSense publisher network and would have worked in a very similar manner to many popular affiliate programs. The program has been...
This week's list of the top 500 most frequently searched keywords....
One of the challenges of small businesses and start-up entrepreneurs is finding a way to create a strong personal brand while still getting your work done and your personal life taken care of. This challenge can be especially strong when...
Every now and then I run across an article that purports to share some snippet of undiscovered wisdom. Sometimes these articles are great, other times they make me want to type *headdesk* over and over. There's an article like this...
If you're in the loop when it comes to viral video, you've likely already watched "I'm Into Nuggets Ya'll" on YouTube or Stupid Videos. The catchy rap and beat boxing poking fun at McDonald's "honest, we're hip" approach to marketing...
Wal-Mart has finally enabled consumer reviews for the products being sold on its web site. The move comes a little more than six months after a Wal-Mart sponsored blog came screeching to a halt amidst a storm of criticism when...
From Dell Hell to my own incident with the National Pork Board, there's no denying the power that social media wields when it comes to giving the "little guy/gal" a voice. Time after time we've seen Internet users turn into...
When it comes to search marketing campaigns, your landing page is one of the single most important factors in whether a site visitor converts to a customer or not. A good landing page can increase your conversion rate several times...
This week's list of the top 500 most frequently searched keywords....
When you are new to blogging, it can be difficult to find your groove. New bloggers are often still trying to figure out their blogging "voice" and what style of posts will be the mainstay of their blog On the...
Wikipedia, the often misunderstood group edited encyclopedia, has long had a love it or hate it relationship with search marketers. While their decision this past year to mark outgoing links with the nofollow tag has lowered their value in some...
Deciding whether to take your search engine optimization or paid search campaigns on in-house or whether to out source them is a tough decision for any size business. Like any other business decision, you'll need to decide if the ROI...
One of the hard things about blogging is the early days when you don't have a strong following and a loyal base of users who like to comment. Since blogging is supposed to be a two-way conversation, blogging without comments...
I've written in the past about the need for political candidates to make better use of search engine optimization and paid search campaigns if they want to get their message to the masses. While things are improving this time around...
One of the biggest challenges of finding yourself with an unintentionally successful blog is trying to figure out how to move it to its own domain without destroying the traffic and rankings you've built up. (This is one reason why...
It's exciting to see small businesses take off running with search engine optimization when they learn about the marketing potential of a well optimized site. However, so many businesses run ahead of their site by optimizing their code without optimizing...
by Simon Heseltine - Over the last couple of years there have been a number of companies that have sprung up across the web offering to generate leads for your business. These companies promise to drive leads to your business...
One of the things that first attracted me to search engine marketing was the ability of small businesses to utilize new (and affordable) marketing tactics to help themselves compete with larger companies with deeper pockets. Unfortunatey, as search marketing has...
Back in my ten part series on "Making Link Bait and Viral Marketing Work," I wrote an article about tapping into motivating factors to get more people to talk about or write about your products and services. One of the...
In the land of link obsessed search marketers, the nofollow tag is not popular. Especially when sites like Wikipedia make use of it. Why? Because the nofollow tag means that search engines won't pick up the incoming link and use...
This week's list of the top 500 most frequently searched keywords....
Using social media tools to make dull products more exciting must be everyone's favorite topic these days. On the heels of my own posts about social networking, consumer generated complaints, how messing up can actually help you, and a great...
If you are still new to the world of paid search advertising, you may be wondering what the difference between the "search" network and the "contextual" network is on programs like Google Adwords or Yahoo. You may have even heard...
Three summers ago I headed off to SES San Jose while 7 months pregnant with my daughter Elnora. I was in that tired stage of pregnancy where I mostly wanted to sleep, but the after-hours networking opportunities were plentiful and...
Social media marketing, social media optimization, social bookmarking, social networking, social, social, SOCIAL. It's everywhere and yet, many people are still having a hard time understanding exactly what the heck we're talking about. So, if you're still trying to figure...
Just last week I mentioned the frustration many B2B companies have with social media and viral marketing. Apart from having excellent customer service or rock bottom prices, it can be hard to inspire enough passion in B2B customers to get...
One of the hot topics of conversation at the High Rankings Seminar last week was how to apply social media marketing in a B2B environment. While word of mouth and consumer generated content often play an important role in B2B...
In the past week, I've made several mentions of the fear many companies have of joining the conversation with their customers online. The biggest concern? That people might say bad things about them. In fact, it's not uncommon to see...
It's been a month since some of the most respected names in search engine marketing gathered in Seattle for Danny Sullivan's SMX Advanced conference. That means that the embargo on the information shared in the "Give it Up" panel is...
Manoj Jasra has put together a great little collection of links and articles outlining the industry's coverage of Google's Universal Search technology. If you're still trying to wrap your head around the idea, or have moved on to trying to...
Last week while I was in Denver teaching about social media and viral marketing, I was trying to come up with a good analogy to explain the problem many business owners face when trying to enter this realm. As usual,...
eMarketer reports that more than 65 million adults in the United States are already spreading the word about their favorite products and services. 27 million of them are doing it online. That number adds up to include about 17.5% of...
What happens when search ads and display ads are merged and you sprinkle in a bit of behavioral targeting? Apparently, you get click-thru rates two to three times higher than you do now. In fact, if Yahoo SmartAds work the...
Last week while I was in Denver speaking at Jill Whalen's High Rankings Seminar I had the chance to speak with several of the attendees about their own company's opinions about social media marketing. While many were excited at the...
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