3/30/2005 07:47:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Here's a nice overview discussion thread on how to do seo from the ground up. I haven't gone through all of details of the article. But it definitely looks like it's on the right track:
Cre8asite forums. Chat and Rave - send2paul - Cre8asite Example Of The Year 2004. [ Search Engine Optimization, Usability and Web Design. ]|W|P|111218687651049035|W|P|Cre8asite forums. Chat and Rave - send2paul - Cre8asite Example Of The Year 2004. [ Search Engine Optimization, Usability and Web Design. ]|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com3/29/2005 08:44:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|"Google plans to make these tools available to web site owners and marketers to better enable them to increase their advertising return on investment and make their web sites more effective. "
This purchase is definitely a logical evolution for a search company. It will be interesting to see how Google uses them.
Google Agrees to Acquire Urchin|W|P|111210386240628416|W|P|Google Agrees to Acquire Urchin|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com3/25/2005 08:20:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P| "Creative Commons offers a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors and artists. We have built upon the 'all rights reserved' of traditional copyright to create a voluntary 'some rights reserved' copyright. We're a nonprofit. All of our tools are free."
I just heard a saying recently, "hyperlinks subvert hierarchy". This plays right into that idea.
Here you will find audio, images, video and text that you can use, modify and build on.
Brilliant!
Something else I recently heard was that innovation comes from chaos. So, in effect, you have to create chaos to get innovation. This appeals to that ideal as well.
Enjoy.
Creative Commons|W|P|111175684420551297|W|P|Creative Commons|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com3/22/2005 10:29:00 AM|W|P|joe|W|P|InterActiveCorp (IAC) is the owner of websites like Expedia, Ticketmaster, Home Shopping Network, Match.com and CitySearch. Now they can add in all of the Ask Jeeves sites. IAC purchased AskJeeves for just under $2 billion. This might give AskJeeves the boost it needs to wrestle with the big boys, Google, Yahoo and MSN.IAC/InterActive owns a variety of Internet businesses. Its principle holdings are Expedia, Ticketmaster, Home Shopping Network, Match.com and CitySearch. Advertising spending on search sites is rapidly growing and Mr. Diller's company appears to be trying to tap into a market dominated by Google and Yahoo...
CitySearch, one of its holdings, is a network of city guides that provide information on restaurants, bars and events in different cities. By marrying a local-search business with a global search engine, Interactive hopes to benefit from further growth in targeted keyword advertising, the executive involved in the deal said.(NYT)
This should be an interesting story to follow.
The New York Times > Business > Ask Jeeves Inc. to Be Bought for $2 Billion|W|P|111150539664853836|W|P|The New York Times > Business > Ask Jeeves Inc. to Be Bought for $2 Billion|W|P|joemabraham@gmail.com3/22/2005 08:04:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|"If you find that your site is being effected by the Google Sandbox, the best approach we've found is to just ignore it. There's very little that you can do to prevent the Sandbox effect. Our advice is that you just keep building links, adding content, and optimizing your site as you would normally. "
This is good advice. It's extremely hard to do. But it's good advice.
MarketPosition Monthly - March 2005|W|P|111149664390478396|W|P|MarketPosition Monthly - March 2005|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com3/16/2005 01:02:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Watch out Overture, you are on the way to losing another partner:
MSN To Launch Its Own Paid Listings Program
"How about launches of the program -- which currently has no name -- beyond France and Singapore? MSN isn't saying when that will happen. Given the six month horizon we already have, I'd say don't expect this until the end of the year, at the earliest. MSN has no need to rush. Its deal with Yahoo for paid listings runs through June 2006."|W|P|111099615412238900|W|P|MSN To Launch Its Own Paid Listings Program|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com3/15/2005 09:08:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Study: Consumers Delete Cookies at Surprising Rate: "Nearly 40 percent of Internet users delete cookies from their primary computers on at least a monthly basis, according to a study by JupiterResearch. "
I'm pretty skeptical of this. Just because I know a lot of internet users and I don't think 40% of them would even know how to delete a cookie if they were forced to. But then again, I thought Kerry was going to win. What do I know.
The point of all this, which I do think is valid, is that we need to look at our statistical data more as a survey than as actual precise data. The 60% of people who don't delete their cookies will give us enough data to make educated decisions on what marketing is working and what isn't.|W|P|111089568635138108|W|P|Study: Consumers Delete Cookies at Surprising Rate|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com3/14/2005 03:44:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Wow! My mug is on the home page of Ohio.com. It's probably just today. But it's very fun!
Ohio.com : Northeast Ohio's source for local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes|W|P|111083305523968507|W|P|Ohio.com : Northeast Ohio's source for local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com3/14/2005 08:53:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Welcome Akron Beacon Journal readers!
I'm very excited you had the opportunity to come to our weblog. I happen to be an avid BJ reader myself. So, you are something of a kindred spirit to me.
This is a very non-traditional post on this blog, as we take great strides to only post items that pertain strictly to web marketing. But today's article calls for special circumstances. I wanted talk to you a bit about blogging and possibly how it might fit into your business.
If you are a high level executive at a local company possibly you have at least casually considered how blogging might fit into your company culture. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't be here now. But you might be concerned as to what good it would do for you.
Our blog consistantly is the leading traffic generator compared any other section of our web site. More people go to our blog than go to our article sections or our service sections. Our blog also has the highest rate of return visitors.
On average people come to a site 13 times before they buy as we reported in this blog post:
SageRock Web Marketing Weblog: Connecting nonconverting keywords to conversion outcomes. You have to give them a reason to want to return to your site 13 times.
It is also very easy to update. As you can see below, Joe Abraham posted to our blog yesterday � Sunday (no, I don�t make people work Sunday). He did this from his home. Because the publishing tool is web-based, anyone who is permitted to post to the blog can add an article from anywhere in the world.
Additionally, this is not something that just small companies are doing. High level executives from major corporations are getting involved. The Vice Chairman of GM, Bob Lutz, is an avid blogger. He posts regularly here:
Detroit Auto News - Auto Industry News from the GM FastLane Blog and Bob Lutz. This is a great opportunity for him to quickly address the public and also discuss some of his philosophical business views. This blog in particular is a very interesting read for the business community at large.
Because a blog is really little more than a web-based publishing tool, it can be used for many things. It could be used as an internal discussion platform for your company's employees. You could use it as Bob Lutz does as a way of casually communicating on a regular basis to his company, shareholders and the public. It could be used as a way of communicating directly with individual customers - keeping them up to date with their ongoing projects. If you have information you would like to make available to anyone, chances are you could fashion a blog to help you achieve this goal. And as Erika points out in the article today, it is free. Just go to Blogger.com, or any other blog publisher and set up an account. The point of blogging is to bring publishing to the common man. Everyone now has a voice... not just publishing houses and the technology literate. This is ultimately why blogging is becoming such a hot topic.
Erika Smith and I had a very interesting discussion about how very few Akron-based companies were experimenting with blogs. I certainly understand why that is. There are many reasons why a company wouldn't want to delve into this topic. Possibly you feel it would be too complicated, the cost of entry would be too prohibitive. You and your employees are too busy as it is. It doesn't look like it would be of value to your company. But clearly you are still reading :)
So here is our offer. If you are an Akron-based (or in close proximity) organization we will make available our time to help you set up a blog, or at least consider a blog for your company, non-profit or other organization. We'll offer this for free. But you have to call or email us in the next week - that way this isn't an open ended offer. If we get a lot of takers, we'll set up a seminar at our office here in Akron. But if it is just a few of you, we'll gladly talk to you one on one. We are clearly major advocates of blogging here at SageRock.com. We would like to help push Akron into the Blogging arena. As Erika and I talked last week, I didn't quite know who would be a good evangilist for blogging. The more I thought about it, it seemed that we might be as good as any.
You can call me, Sage Lewis at 330-379-9000 and I will gladly get something set up to help you establish your blog.
Thank you very much for reading and thank you, Erika Smith, for the excellent article and pictures today.|W|P|111080839222044030|W|P|ABJ - Your Business Solutions March 14, 2005|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com3/13/2005 01:25:00 PM|W|P|joe|W|P|I'm still pretty set in my ways. I'm still in love with Google, but I feel it is only fair to give the new MSN search engine an honest try. If you want to follow along click here to open up a new window for MSN search.
So far, everything looks pretty normal. Then I noticed a little box underneath the search bar called "Search Builder." I clicked on it, and to my surprise I was pleasantly rewarded. A new menu opens up with options to create a search tailored to you. The Search Builder menu defaults to a "Search Terms" tab that allows you to choose terms that you want to exclude or include. The "Site/Domain" tab set up searched within a domain or excludes a particular domain. The "Links To" tab allows you to do a backlink search. The next tab "Country/Region" helps determine a geographic region for your search. Combine that with the following tab, "Language," and you can create interesting searches. Now, none of this seems ground breaking to the people in the SEO world, but for the average user who rarely does little more then type in a phrase, this is big step in the world of search.
The final tab, I found the most interesting: "Results Ranking." This tab allows you to play with MSN's algorithm to get results tailored to your desires. If you want fresh data, you can specify that along with importance of link popularity and how closely your phrase matches what is on the page. This is a great tool to help create an online marketing campaign. By adjusting the different bars, you get to see how MSN views your site. You could use the popularity bar in conjunction with your keywords to figure out how aggressive of a link campaign is needed. You can play with the freshness bar to see what people are writing about your keyphrase and try to implement a blog to maintain your freshness.
All in all the basic search features seemed pretty good. I don't know yet if I like the results I get, but I like having the flexibility of engineering a search around my needs. MSN been heavily promoting their new engine and I'm excited to see where their engine goes. Will Google be strong enough to outlast new engines, or will I be MSN'ing my searches in the years to come?|W|P|111074056114288549|W|P|Fun Things to Try with MSN Search|W|P|joemabraham@gmail.com3/11/2005 05:15:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|All of the files I use are on a mapped drive. This is not normally handled by the standard Google Desktop Search tool. But we're in luck! Here is a registry hack that solves the problem.
I've done this and it seems to sort of solve the problem. It doesn't appear that all of the files are being indexed on the mapped drive yet. I'll be interested in seeing if it updates more over the weekend.
Google Desktop Search Tips|W|P|111057932761194475|W|P|Google Desktop Search Tips - Mapping a network drive|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com3/11/2005 11:47:00 AM|W|P|LeftoverJoe|W|P|I saw that awhile ago Overture and MSN renewed their relationship regarding pay per click results listings. This means that for the next year MSN will serve up Overture sponsored results on MSN search pages. This is good news for everyone...but lurking in the shadows is most certainly a proprietary Microsoft paid search results engine much like Overture, but with results solely for MSN and their partners.
If this sounds confusing, it's probably because I am a bad writer, not because it actually is confusing.
Basically what this means is that if you currently manage pay per click accounts, you most likely will use the Google AdWords program and Overture's Precision Match program. These two paid search engines cover well over 85% of the internets search results and supply results for the big four search engines: Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL.
Here's the catch;MSN recently created their own search engine after relying on Yahoo organic/free listings for years. Now when you search using the MSN search bar on their page or any of their partner pages, you will be served results straight from MSN's own engine.
I predict that not far behind will be MSN's new amazing, wonderful, all-inclusive, fabulous, better than all the rest, pay per click engine. They will not renew another contract with Overture for search results and then you will have to manage three separate paid search engines to reach the four major search engine results pages.
This could be a blessing at first, as the new bid prices would start lower just as they were low when paid search first hit the market. Eventually though the MSN engine will probably be just as expensive as the others.
It will certainly create a market for tools that can manage and manipulate bids on this new engine. Software companies are always looking for new ways to make our lives easier in the pay per click world and this engine will oblige them. Some will be nice enough to adapt their existing management tools to handle it, but some will create a brand new tool that you have to pay brand new money to use.
It makes total sense for Microsoft to do this and I am actually surprised they haven't already implemented their own paid search engine. They kind of missed the boat when pay per click was really getting popular and now they are playing catch up. But you can never discount the power of excellent branding and internet presence, both of which they have in spades.
To summarize this rambling post, for now the pay per click is in a pretty stable place. By June of next year though, I expect some serious seismic activity in the paid search arena. Will it be good or bad? That depends on what side of the coin you're on probably. For agencies like us it will be tough to adjust for awhile and reconfigure our billing structure to handle the changes. For the consumer it won't make much difference at all I don't think. There will still be sponsored ads in the search results, they'll just be coming from a different source. So mark June 1st, 2006 on your calendar if you manage or purchase paid search campaigns. It's going to be a day to watch.|W|P|111055966605919411|W|P|Not too early to think about the Overture and MSN pay per click relationship|W|P|spartacus27@gmail.com3/09/2005 01:54:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Are you not getting enough blog content in your diet?
A Cool Blog Discovery Tool: "Finding good blog content can be a challenge."
BlogStreet : Blog Profile makes for an easy way to find related content to blogs you already like.
|W|P|111039449290220680|W|P|A Cool Blog Discovery Tool|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com