The difference between success and failure in many campaigns these days comes down to how well the conversion process has been optimized. But doing optimization well can feel complex and confusing. SEOgadget has put together a great infographic that takes you through 10 steps to making your next campaign profitable. You can see the full HTML version here. … [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...]
Has Google Killed SEO?
Google changed SEO today. With the announcement of Google Instant they have, at a stroke, increased their number of search queries by a factor of 20, made obsolete current ways of optimizing for SEO and changed how AdWords calculates impressions. It’s a big deal. In essence Google Instant tries to predict what a user wants to find before they complete their … [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...]
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...]
More Ways to Search
Search powerhouse Google has ascended not only to the No. 1 starting place for most Web searches, but the name has become part of the popular consciousness, even spawning the use of its name as a verb. To Google is to discover the globe.That's all about to change and the world of search is about to bust wide open.Not to say that the top three search engines - Google, Yahoo and … [Read more...]
Overcoming Your SEO Fears
Ask nearly everyone and they'll say that search engine optimization is intimidating. Search engine optimization - SEO for short - should be a familiar term and practice for anyone or any commercial company with a website. SEO is what you do to your website to get a higher ranking on search engines,particularly Google,Yahoo and MSN.The higher you rank the more likely someone … [Read more...]
Do Your Metrics Measure Up?
Steve DiPietro is amazed at how frequently he listens to prospective clients parroting clickthrough percentages, Web traffic statistics and conversion ratios with great enthusiasm but little-to-no understanding of their value to their organizations. Increasing a conversion rate from 12 to 15 percent can become a goal unto itself as marketers immersed in number crunching can … [Read more...]
Search Is Getting Personal
Your phone rings. A good friend is calling, more excited than you've heard her in months. "My book is on the home page of Amazon! I can't believe it. My book was just published last week and already it's on Amazon's home page!" Exciting? Maybe not to someone who knows how Amazon works. Your friend has seen her book on her version of Amazon's home page, but a closer look shows … [Read more...]
Taking It Offline
If baseball is the thinking person's game, then online advertising is the thinking person's medium. Much like the national pastime, part of the draw of online advertising comes from the ability to break down performance into limitless particles of useful (and useless) information, such as batting average with runners in scoring position after the 7th inning, or the clickthrough … [Read more...]