The day's big news of Google's precipitous drop in share price concealed the fact that Google's average CPC is down 15% from a year ago. This decline in one of Google's key performance metrics has potentially far more long-term consequences than a silly printer's mistake. Yesterday’s premature release of Google’s disappointing quarterly earnings caused a major melt … [Read more...]
How To Rank 2nd For "Car Insurance" In 6 Months Flat
Want to get the equivalent of $4million worth of paid search traffic per month to your site? Think Google knows how to keep their SERPs nice and clean? Still believe in Santa Clause? We love case studies that show just how easy it can be to fool Google and some of the other search engines. It's not that we don't support Google's efforts to keep crappy results out. It's just … [Read more...]
Russia's Biggest Search Engine Yandex Up By 50%+
Yandex, Russia's biggest search engine has not only just signed a real-time search deal with Twitter but has also released its results for Q4-2011 showing over 50% growth in sales and profits year-on-year. Yandex's share of Russian search now stands at 60.8% and they're planning for more growth with an aggressive move into mobile. SERPs pages served were up 36% and … [Read more...]
Yahoo's Traffic Plummeting
The trend is clear: Yahoo's search traffic is on a steep decline. For the second month in a row, Yahoo lost significant share of U.S. searches, according to ComScore, falling 0.4 points to 14.1%. It has now lost almost a full percentage point in the last two months, and more than two points since last August. … [Read more...]
Raising Your Score
Over the last seven to 10 years, paid search has proven to be a cost effective channel for affiliates and performance marketers alike to drive high quality leads while maintaining strong ROI. In fact, search engine marketing (SEM) frequently represents an inordinate portion of a performance marketer’s business – often more than they care to admit.The decline in … [Read more...]
Lights, Cameras, Action!
Raise your hand if you've heard of Blendtec. I bet you are familiar with Blendtec and I bet I know how you first heard of their blenders - from their viral video series called "Will it blend?" That series, showing iPods and other unusual items being reduced to powder by a powerful blender, serves a strong branding message: If it can annihilate an iPod, it will make quick work … [Read more...]
YouTube Should Get Down to Business
According to the U.S. Census Bureau,there are nearly six million businesses in the United States. Think about the enormity of that number.That's billions and billions of dollars in revenue generation every year. That's also six million businesses that all require the same basic nourishment to survive - marketing and sales.If you're one of those six million businesses, there's … [Read more...]
Content vs. SEO
Hamlet Batista, president and CEO of NEMedia, wants to change your content. He wants to change it so much that he can't wait to get his search team cracking on it. It's his bread and butter. And like any SEO outfit, he claims he can get your site optimized and ranking rapidly. But he also has a passion for words. He wants to respect your content - the carefully crafted … [Read more...]
Skinflint Search Marketing
I admit it - I'm a skinflint. Call me a tightwad, a miser - I don't care. Basically, I'm cheap. And even if you're not cheap by personality, you might need to conserve cash by necessity. If that's your situation, don't despair. The Internet is tailor-made for you. Internet marketing, and search marketing in particular, is the land of the free. So step up, you skinflints, and … [Read more...]
Searching for Alternatives
It was a cold night in Pennsylvania when Leila Crooks was on Digg.com, the community-based popularity site, and came across a story about a "slanket" - a fleece blanket with sleeves that offers the freedom of arm movement so people can play video games or surf computers while snuggling under a blanket. Crooks was intrigued, bought one, loved it and sent the link to … [Read more...]
Search Wars
Even though Google would prefer not to be a verb, the search giant is just that and more. To Google is to search for products, maps, healthcare plans, cars for sale, images of Britney Spears, coupon sites, new mobile phones, the population of Moscow, blogs on gardening - the world really. And more so now.As of last May, Google changed the way it serves results pages. It isn't … [Read more...]
Search Marketing Is Direct Marketing
When I say the word "marketing," what do you think of? Probably some kind of advertising - maybe a TV commercial for Coke. That's brand marketing, and it's gotten the lion's share of attention from marketers for decades. Far fewer people are direct marketers - the folks behind the catalogs and mail solicitations that fill our mailboxes. If you know any direct marketers, you may … [Read more...]
The Tangled Web of Link Spam
In my last column, you were warned to "Never watch sausage being made," lest you find the process so unappetizing you'd never eat it again. But even if you find sausage links tasty, you'll want to spit out those spam links every time.Last time, we explored the consequences of content spam, which include bad publicity and getting banned from the search engines. This time around, … [Read more...]
Spiders Don’t Eat Spam
It's the headline any search marketer would dread: "Google Bans BMW for Search Spamming." For well-known companies, such bad publicity is reason enough to stay away from deceptive search practices. BMW's plight was published in leading newspapers worldwide. But even small companies have reputations to uphold, because the blogosphere can trash a carefully cultivated image for … [Read more...]
Colin McDougall: The Timekeeper
This past summer, super-affiliate Colin McDougall traveled around British Columbia with his family in his newly purchased travel trailer. From mid-July through Labor Day weekend McDougall worked a grand total of about 10 hours from the road. The rest of the time he spent paddling his kids around in an inflatable kayak, feeding the ducks, building sandcastles on the beach and … [Read more...]