I have just seen the funniest viral marketing concept ever. You have to checkout ElfYourself. One of my friends sent me a completed one and I couldn’t stop laughing. I had to immediately create one and send it to my family. Nobody ever knows how successful something like this can be for a company and how it will result in more sales but I am giving props to OfficeMax because I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time.
Many of you have probably heard about Google’s recent frontal assault on the paid link industry. Let’s face it, we all knew that day was coming… we just didn’t know how or when. Well, the cat’s out of the bag and the jig is apparently up for those who found themselves overly enamored with the text ad link brokers of the world. It’s a heated debate, and I’ll probably take some heat for my perspective on this, but I think the move was brilliant on Google’s part.
I’ve been a long proponent of the argument that the importance of Page Rank is completely dependent on your interpretation of Page Rank to begin with. To me, there is more than one form of Page Rank. The first form that most people obsess on is visible Page Rank… the one that graces the web browsers of those who have downloaded the Google toolbar. The there’s the other form, the invisible one that is the basis of Google’s ranking algorithm (aka. the one that matters).
Two of my greatest passions in life are sports and marketing. Combine the two and it creates a powerful tonic that I find… well, irresistible. Given my profession, I have an obvious bias toward the online sector of the advertising universe. In the world of sports, my Tivo roster tends to favor football and baseball. Heck I even have my World Series Tickets from 1980 framed proudly in the corner of my desktop. For the record, I’m a die hard Philadelphia sports fan and University of Oregon Alum… Go Ducks!
I remember back in the day when the sports stadiums took on their own names instead of those of their sponsors. Maybe I’m nostalgic, but I miss those days. I can remember going to Eagles and Phillies games at the Vet and 76ers and Flyers games at the Spectrum. Nowadays they’re Lincoln Financial Field, Citizens Bank Ball Park and Wachovia Complex respectively. That’s not the only thing that’s changing in the world of sports marketing.
MSN will now notify you, when given your contact information, about which pages MSN thinks are the most important on your site as well as a yes/no if they think you are spamming. If yes you can go through a process to find out how and why. This is a nice feature to get some professional search engine feedback about your website and SEO tactics. If only Google provided this information; Hint Hint! You should check this out and all the other features available in both MSN and Google Webmaster tools. There is always something available that you will find valuable.
Have your Adsense referral earnings been a bit sluggish lately? Well, there’s a good reason for this…Google Adsense has placed a temporary restriction on referral earnings while Google checks the validity of click and referral data generated from Adsense ads. Google has not commented on when the validation period will end, but stated that publisher’s earnings will return to normal once they have passed validation. [more..]
Matt Cutts is in charge of the Webspam team at Google. His Blog is extremely popular in the webmaster and search engine optimization world. In many of his Blog posts and interviews there are always interesting tidbits of information that are revealed that only someone that worked for Google would know. Any insight into the secretive intricacies of Google’s algorithm is always great information and Matt Cutts is everyones primary source.
Matt Cutts was recently interviewed in California. During this interview he was asked about Robot.txt and Page Rank for pages that aren’t allowed to be crawled by Google. What was interesting in the interview was when he mentioned “you might want to have a master Sitemap page and for whatever reason NoIndex that, but then have links to all your sub Sitemaps.” A page that isn’t indexed within Google because of a Robot.txt file or NoFollow tag still carries Page Rank and outbound links on that page will still carry weight in internal and external cross-linking. Another situation he mentioned that was important for this scenario is if your website had multiple pages of similar or duplicate content, you could NoIndex the pages you don’t want Google to index but the links going into and coming out of those pages will still carry Page Rank.
The important thing to consider here is that the pages on your website create a web of Page Rank. The home page of your website passes link juice throughout your website. The path of your internal pages from the home page is extremely important from an SEO perspective. You want to make sure that your most important pages get the most link juice that can be obtained. There is always an optimal way to cross link your website and the above information may change some of the intricacies involved in choosing the optimal cross linking structure.
Is This Ethical? Microsoft AKA MSN Live Search is partnering with another search marketing firm, The Search Agency which will offer SEO and Paid Search Marketing services. Microsoft is the parent company of aQuantive, which owns Avenue A Razorfish a major paid search company. [more..]
Over the past few months I have started to notice a trend with Google. They seem to be testing out strange results at select IP addresses on specific terms. I call this the “Google Scramble”. The strange thing is that many of the results are just completely irrelevant. I believe Google periodically performs limited testing on high traffic terms that seems to be about tracking the users clicks to see if they are satisfied with the new results compared to the old results.
Luckily, once Google is done with there testing the final result is of the high quality that we expect from Google. Since most people do not leave the first page, Google may be testing deeper listings that seem to have picked up an abnormal amount of clicks for their placement by moving them to the first page. By putting them on the first page of the results Google can then see how the users interact with them. If the result is clicked on and the user does not return to Google for some time Google may give this URL a boost in it’s “normal” index. But without this testing Google would never have enough click through data on these results to make sound adjustments.
Determining the most cost effective form of Web Site Marketing depends on your business. If your business would greatly benefit from ranking at the top of Google’s search results then Search Engine Marketing is your answer. That is the easy answer though. the difficult answer is determining how to achieve top search engine rankings cost effectively. Paying for top placement in Google AdWords and Yahoo Search can be cost effective but it is difficult for a beginner or someone with little time to dedicate to achieve a good ROI on the investment. Achieving top rankings through the organic results of the Search Engines is the most cost effective form of Web Site Marketing but also the biggest challenge to any business.
If you want a good return on your investment through Google AdWords, Yahoo Search and other Paid Search channels, you’re better off hiring a specialist to manage your campaign for you. The first thought that likely pops into your head is “How can I afford to pay a specialist?”. That is a good question but there is a better one, “How can you not afford to pay a specialist?”. Hiring a specialist to manage your campaign will provide you with the guaranteed ROI that you need to be successful with Paid Search Engine Marketing. There are tools that specialists utilize to make sure you’re always receiving your desired ROI with your campaign. A specialist will also dedicate the time necessary to optimize your campaign and not only achieve great results but increase the volume of business that you receive from your campaign and constantly make improvements over time.
Your next question is likely “Should I hire a specialist as an employee or outsource to a company/consultant?”. While it seems like hiring someone internally is the right answer, usually outsourcing is the best solution. When you outsource to a company that specializes in Paid Search Management you receive more resources at the same or even lower cost of an employee. A Paid Search Management company will have a team of specialists dedicated to your account. Furthermore, finding a good employee that is a Paid Search Engine Marketing specialist is not only difficult but expensive. In the end, outsourcing is the right answer, choosing the right company is the bigger obstacle.
The same questions and answers above apply to Organic Search Engine Optimization. The biggest difference with SEO compared to Paid Search is that one is an investment and the other is an ongoing marketing expense. Search Engine Optimization may seem more costly but in the end the ROI from a successful SEO campaign is far greater than any form of Online Marketing. When the heavy lifting is completed on an SEO campaign, the benefit of having an internal employee can never be justified. There is only so much that can be done once a web site is fully optimized by an employee and most of their options will be to utilize outside services to achieve better search engine rankings. Retaining an SEO Company requires a low monthly expense but you will receive far greater benefit from their expertise and the improvements that can be made over time. Link Building is also an extremely important factor in SEO, unless you already have a very popular web site. An employee could never satisfy your Link Building needs and an SEO Firm has all the tools and resources to provide an effective Link Building strategy for your company.
USWeb is one of the top Search Engine Marketing companies available. The biggest benefit to working with our company is the level of attention that we provide to our clients. You will always have direct access to our specialists at USWeb and they will be involved with every detail of your campaign. We pride ourselves in being a big company but making our clients feel like they are working with a small company that provides them with an unprecedented level of attention. You may be asking yourself, “I am sure that level of attention comes at a greater cost, no?” The answer is amazingly no. We are constantly complimented about our competitive prices based upon the level of expertise and service we deliver. We also work with small and medium size companies and they also find our prices very reasonable.
If you’re interested in learning more about our products and services, please feel free to contact me directly.
Sincerely,
Brian Ratzker VP, Business Development (212) 404-5603 brian@usweb.com
With the holidays around the corner everyone wants to take advantage of the most important time of the year and maximize their revenues. One of the most important avenues of driving sales for the holiday season is through search engine marketing. Ranking at the top of Google can provide a substantial amount of business for your company. Ranking at the bottom of the 1st page of Google results doesn’t provide enough exposure to have a significant impact on your business. If you rank at the bottom of the 1st page of results or even on the 2nd page of Google there is something that you can do to give you an extra boost in your rankings for the holiday season. USWeb has access to a network of Bloggers that can provide buzz about your company and quality links to your website. This service can have a substantial impact on your search engine rankings in a short amount of time and provide that extra boost that anyone can use to increase your holiday business and sales.
USWeb is one of the top Search Engine Optimization companies and we can provide you with valuable insight into your website and what can be done to help you maximize your holiday sales. I would be happy to provide you with some quick recommendations on what you can do to increase your search engine rankings at no cost. Link Building is extremely important for most websites and that is something I will likely recommend but a conversation with me is worth your time regardless if you choose to utilize any of our services. I am always happy to help anyone I speak with.
Brian Ratzker VP, Business Development (212) 404-5603 brian@usweb.com
