8/31/2005 04:04:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Yahoo had a rough week or so with some updates they were trying. Here's a pretty thorough analysis of the situation with links to a Yahoo apology and an annotated letter from Yahoo Search Marketing president Ted Meisel for their goings on.
It's nice to see them admitting a mistake and addressing it. ...really quite refreshing.
Yahoo Apologizes For Ad Management Problems; Issues Case-By-Case Refunds|W|P|112552227367622464|W|P|Yahoo Apologizes For Ad Management Problems; Issues Case-By-Case Refunds|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/31/2005 08:58:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|So now Microsoft wants to get into the VoIP field with the likes of Vonage.
You have to have a bit of vision about what is going on here. But Google and MSN are gradually changing how we all potentially might think of the Internet.
This is bigger than just taking on Vonage. Unfortunately, the likes of Vonage do not really stand a chance in this whole thing. They are just one small piece of a much bigger puzzle. Vonage may someday just be bought up.
Microsoft and Google are in a race to integrate everything.
Think about gmail.com that allows you to store gigs of email at their servers. Blogger.com allows you to put up your blog, of any size, for free at blogspot.com.
Imagine this, all your music, all your movies, all your pictures... everything that can possibly be digitized will all be stored at one location: Google.com or MSN.com.
You won't have an operating system like you think of it now. You won't have programs like you think of them now. All of it will reside at one location. The benefit of that is going to be pretty amazing. You will be able to access all your music at home, work, the car, while you are on vacation. Same with your movies. You will log into Google or MSN and all of your preferences, bookmarks, everything that makes you feel warm and comfortable will all be instantly available to you. This will happen from anywhere in the world... on laptops, desktops, phones, pda's... anywhere.
Telephone access is just one part of this. All of your phone messages will be at your single point of access. It's just going to make your entire existence more seemless.
Another added benefit to the consumer is, you probably aren't going to always have to buy the latest and greatest technology for your computer. In the future, you probably will buy a basic Thin Client computer and everything else will reside on Google or MSN. That's going to be nice to not have to think about hardware issues. All of your programs, everything, will all be instantly updated with the latest spyware and virus protection. You won't have to worry about any of it any more. People will be able to be consumers and not computer technicians. My kid will think it was crazy that I had to swap out hardware, continually update software and worry about spam, and viruses. It will all be a non-issue.
And all of that from MSN thinking of acquiring a VoIP.
So as you watch Google and MSN buying and experimenting with things that seem to have nothing to do with their core business, just think of them as someday their core business being your Single Point of Access... Your SPA.
business2blog: Microsoft Calling|W|P|112549670129387253|W|P|Microsoft to Acquire Teleo for VoIP|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/29/2005 03:23:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|I just read an interesting article about being a bad seo or being a bad seo client. You can find that article here:
Do You Have a Bad SEO Company, or Are You Just a Bad Client?
That's an interesting topic because it extends out much further than search engine optimization. This is a topic that touches every service-based business on the planet.
The author of the above piece is making some valid points. He's saying that sometimes clients do inconsiderate things that make the job of the optimizer very difficult. I agree. As he said, they don't return calls, they overwrite work. Sometimes they're just mean. We have clients that pay us down payments and then disappear. That's not a terrible thing on our end. But it's not a great relationship.
While all of this goes on, I'm hesitant lay the blame on the client. I feel that if a client mistreats you, doesn't communicate with you or sabotages your work, it is the service provider who has failed. It isn't the client.
The service business provider has failed in two ways: They have failed to set realistic expectations. And they have failed to teach people how to treat them.
Every time a client is upset with us, it is always because we didn't set realistic and clear expectations. This is a major problem with the search engine marketing industry.
So often clients are told that the sun will rise and set with their search engine optimization campaign. They are going to be #1 on all the engines for their best key phrases and the orders are going to come flooding in. I am the first to tell people that conversion rates are better in search than in any other marketing, that it is an ideal way to reach a niche audience, that the dollars you spend on TV and print are going to be much more expensive than the dollars you spend on search. But there are clearly problems with search. First, there is a saturation problem. You can't reach the numbers of people you can in a newspaper or on TV. Secondly, and most importantly, you have absolutely no control over when, how and if the search engines will index you. If making next month's payroll is all rolling on whether or not Google is going to get you in its index, I would rather you take that money to Las Vegas. Your odds are probably going to be better at the blackjack tables. Marketing is an endurance game. If you play it as a sprint, you are probably going to lose.
But really, this kind of thing is true with any service business. If you don't let people know exactly what it is that they will be getting, they are very likely to decide for themselves. That's going to put you potentially in a very bad position.
The only way you set up good expectations for the search engine optimization field is to keep an ongoing record of all the failures you encounter. Here are some of the things I like to tell people before we set out to work together:
- Key phrase research is done with your input. Expect up to 3 rounds of research and probably 2-3 hours of your time.
- Page optimization takes about 2-3 weeks(a big project will take longer) and then will be uploaded for your approval. Once you approve it we will move it into place.
- Indexing in the search engines will take 45-60 days. Even though your page will probably get indexed there is no guarantee you will appear for your targeted key phrase.
- Search engine positioning reports start 30 days after all of your optimized pages are up and linked on your site.
- The more competitive a phrase is the longer it is going to take to rank well for that phrase. It is possible that one specific phrase will never rank high in the search engines.
- Search engine optimization is nothing more than writing good content and getting good, quality industry-related links. Trust that system and you will not fail.
I know it's scary telling clients those things up front. But it's much scarier telling them after they've waited 3 months to see their results.
The other thing service business people don't do is they don't train people how to treat them. I think sometimes clients look forward to abusing service business people. They can be rude and just plain mean. I refuse to work with anyone who does not treat me with respect. No amount of money is worth any abuse. This is how I handle it, if someone is treating me poorly:
First, I make sure they know that I understand the situation. "So I have made you angry that your site is not coming up for the word "computer".
Second, once I am sure they know I understand their feelings, I tell them my position. I make them understand how I feel. "I never work with anyone who treats me disrespectfully. No one ever yells at me. Do you understand?
Third, I tell them what I want. "From now on we both will treat each other respectfully and considerately.
I never make any ultimatums at that point. I can decide what to do if they ever treat me poorly again. I can fire them, raise their rates... whatever I want. I'll tell you what, though. I have never been treated disrespectfully ever again by someone I've had that conversation with.
This is Assertive Communication 101. I highly recommend learning more about this if you are working with the public. It will save you a lot of stress.
I went to a Disney Institute seminar once. One of more memorable things they said was:
It may not be your fault but it is your problem.
Taking that stance will significantly help all of the relationships you encounter... business and personal.|W|P|112534804291501871|W|P|SEO Expectations and Service Business Expectations|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/26/2005 07:48:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|I'm glad this is documented because it's been a tough week in working with Yahoo(aka Overture).
It's always the case that when this sort of thing happens there are pay per click emergencies everywhere. Money was getting charged to accounts that were turned off, the Vioxx lawsuit last Friday made that an urgent area for those people. Then there were just general annoyances. There were no reports available. The daily spend and daily traffic numbers were not updated. It just went on and on.
Our paid search specialist tried calling Yahoo yesterday. That is normally not a problem because he has Ambassador status. But all he got was a creepy beep on the other end.
I know that when you are in the middle of it, it's hard to believe. But you must trust me on this one: There is no such thing as a search engine emergency.
This will all get worked out.
You can read about this Yahoo meltdown here, if you want. It may make you feel better that you aren't alone:
Yahoo Ad System Crashes, Angering Advertisers in the Process|W|P|112506050789930339|W|P|Yahoo Ad System Crashes - Week of August 22, 2005|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/24/2005 02:49:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|I've just downloaded Google talk and have started the process of getting it rolling. You can view it here:
Google Talk
Jennifer Laycock gives a nice overview of the service here:
Google Launches Google Talk
And here is a pretty thorough rundown of Google Talk features. And it also gives a great side-by-side comparison of all the different instant messaging services. That's quite handy:
New Google Talk Offers Instant Messaging
Right now there are a lot restrictions on the kind of system that is needed: you need Windows 2000, Windows XP (Home & Pro), or Windows Server 2003.
And actually, the services are quite limited at this point.
But the buzz on this thing is amazing. I came to work today and found an invitation to join by a friend of mine in Chicago. I don't really know how Google does it, but they have some magic gift with word-of-mouth advertising.
I get the sense that Google is pushing this more as a voice over IP service than a standard instant messenger. I've got my microphone set up and I've tested it with a couple people. The service works really well.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Google spending more time making this compatible with other VOIP services.
I'm so glad I'm not in the phone business these days. We, as consumers, continue to get more and more reasons to leave our standard telcos. It will be hard leaving all that great customer service.|W|P|112491297618745260|W|P|Overview of Google Talk |W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/23/2005 06:31:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|This pretty much says it all:
July 2005 search engine market shares: Google - 36.5%, Yahoo! - 30.5%, MSN - 15.5% | IT Facts ? Your Daily Research Synopsis | ZDNet.com
There isn't much really to report here. It does look like MSN still has a way to go. You can find more of the ComScore report here:
Google, Yahoo take July search honors | Tech News on ZDNet|W|P|112479666146087690|W|P|July 2005 search engine market shares: |W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/22/2005 09:51:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|As I continue to track the indexing of our new sites, I'm finding some interesting things. You can find our first tracking post here:
SageRock: Google Sitemaps Experiment - Web Marketing Blog
Google is actually unchanged this week, pretty much. But Yahoo and MSN have made some big moves. You can see the numbers in comparison with this week and last week here:
Date Engine Pages Indexed Site Code
8/15/2005 Google 1 Ba
8/22/2005 Google 1 Ba
8/15/2005 MSN 0 Ba
8/22/2005 MSN 20 Ba
8/15/2005 Yahoo 0 Ba
8/22/2005 Yahoo 1 Ba
8/15/2005 Google 1 Be
8/22/2005 Google 2 Be
8/15/2005 MSN 8 Be
8/22/2005 MSN 17 Be
8/15/2005 Yahoo 3 Be
8/22/2005 Yahoo 31 Be
8/15/2005 Google 2 C
8/22/2005 Google 2 C
8/15/2005 MSN 7 C
8/22/2005 MSN 59 C
8/15/2005 Yahoo 0 C
8/22/2005 Yahoo 38 C
8/15/2005 Google 1 Ca
8/22/2005 Google 1 Ca
8/15/2005 MSN 4 Ca
8/22/2005 MSN 34 Ca
8/15/2005 Yahoo 2 Ca
8/22/2005 Yahoo 3 Ca
8/15/2005 Google 1 Ce
8/22/2005 Google 1 Ce
8/15/2005 MSN 2 Ce
8/22/2005 MSN 4 Ce
8/15/2005 Yahoo 0 Ce
8/22/2005 Yahoo 2 Ce
8/15/2005 Google 2 D
8/22/2005 Google 2 D
8/15/2005 MSN 0 D
8/22/2005 MSN 3 D
8/15/2005 Yahoo 3 D
8/22/2005 Yahoo 17 D
MSN in particular is quite a mover. I will say, though, that Google is spidering these sites very heavily. I'll look into this next week and see how it's all continuing to go.
|W|P|112472230189286933|W|P|Google Sitemaps Experiment - Part 2|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/22/2005 09:15:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|This has become a bit of a hobby for me. I've been doing a run of Google SiteMap findings.
I've examined this subject in the past here:
SageRock: Review of Google Sitemap Generator and Editor - Web Marketing Blog
Google Sitemaps - The Simpler Way
Google Blog: Webmaster-friendly
Today I'm going to look at the SOFTplus GSiteCrawler found here:
SOFTplus GSiteCrawler (Johannes Mueller)
This is a downloaded software package for Windows. The program runs on all Windows versions from Windows 95A on up (e.g. Windows 95A/B/C, 98/98SE, ME, 2000 Pro/Server, XP Pro/Home, 2003 Server). It's going through a lot of testing. So the version I have will expire on September 1, 2005. But everything installed fine. And it opened up without any problems.
The developer, Johannes Mueller is very eager and excited about the project, "I'd love to hear from you," he writes. That's a very nice sentiment from a programmer - especially for a free piece of software.
The software opens up in a tabbed format which makes the process really intuitive.
This software clearly takes the capability of these Google Sitemap generators to another level. It allows you to enter your ftp access information so your sitemap.xml file will automatically upload to your server. That's very nice.
To start, you simply click the "Add new project" button and you're off. It pretty much does everything for you.
This is definitely more comprehensive than anything else I've tried before.
So far, this is definitely the winner in Google Sitemap creators. It is really feature rich.
If you are still looking for a tool to help you with your Google Sitemap I would say this is the one to check out.
|W|P|112472013222493579|W|P|Review of a Google Sitemap Generator - SOFTplus GSiteCrawler |W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/15/2005 09:13:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|I've been doing some experiments with the Google Sitemaps program over the last 5 days. I thought I might report my findings so far.
We have created 6 new directories. They launched between Wednesday and Friday of last week - August 10-12. We have created and submitted sitemap.xml files with four of the directories. The other two have no sitemap.xml files. 2 of the six directories currently have 2 pages indexed. The rest have 1 page indexed.
I am slowly linking them from other sites. I have blogged about all of the directories except for one as single blog post. I have put a site wide link to one directory on my personal blog.
I am finding that Google continually spiders the sitemap.xml files. But rarely looks at the actual pages. It will look at the home pages but that's about it right now. Yahoo and MSN are spidering much more vigorously. MSN, actually, is starting to move quite deeply through the sites.
These are the stats of how many pages have been indexed for each directory:
Date Engine Pages Indexed Site Code
8/15/2005 Google 1 Be
8/15/2005 Google 1 Ba
8/15/2005 Google 1 Ce
8/15/2005 Google 2 C
8/15/2005 Google 2 D
8/15/2005 Google 1 Ca
8/15/2005 MSN 8 Be
8/15/2005 MSN 0 Ba
8/15/2005 MSN 2 Ce
8/15/2005 MSN 7 C
8/15/2005 MSN 0 D
8/15/2005 MSN 4 Ca
8/15/2005 Yahoo 3 Be
8/15/2005 Yahoo 0 Ba
8/15/2005 Yahoo 0 Ce
8/15/2005 Yahoo 0 C
8/15/2005 Yahoo 3 D
8/15/2005 Yahoo 2 Ca
I am intentionally linking these sites pretty slowly. I will say, however, that site "Be" with 8 pages indexed in MSN is the site I created a site wide link to in a blog of mine.
I'm sorry I'm not giving out the directories here yet. I just want to keep this experiment fairly controlled. I don't want these sites to be given links from overly high PageRanked sites yet.
I'll review this weekly to see how things progress.
As an aside, all of these directories have Google AdSense listings on them. When I turned on these directories, the click through rate of all our AdSense sites immediately went to zero. We were still getting the same traffic. But for some reason we suddenly stopped getting clicks. Then Sunday August 14, the clicks started happening again. I don't know if that was a coincidence or if there was some connection. I've found some vague similar situations on some of the discussion boards. I'm not sure we'll ever find out for sure. But I thought it was interesting.|W|P|112412115881261243|W|P|Google Sitemaps Experiment|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/12/2005 02:31:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Thanks for the link Free Traffic Tips! I'm sorry I didn't come across this sooner.
Free Traffic Tips - the blog: Blog of the Day :: SageRock Web Marketing Weblog|W|P|112387511520417763|W|P|Free Traffic Tips - the blog: Blog of the Day :: SageRock Web Marketing Weblog|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/12/2005 02:29:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|I'm going to try my hand at teaching. I'm putting on a 4 course class all on optimization. We are going to optimize an actual site in the class.
It will be this fall. You can find all of the specifics here:
Cleveland State University || Continuing Education
I've pulled the course description out here:
Search Engine Optimization for Fun and Profit
It will be Tuesday nights in October:
October 4-25
Tuesdays, 6:00 pm-9:00 pm
Downtown, Cole Center
CPTR 518601 1500
CEUs: 1.2 $299
It should be pretty interesting. I feel fairly confident that I can teach a motivated person pretty much everything they would need to know to get started down a career path of search engine optimization. We'll see this fall.|W|P|112387498380248394|W|P|Search Engine Optimization Class at Cleveland State University || Continuing Education|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/10/2005 08:55:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|I've been spending some time working with this Google Sitemap Generator.
I've examined this subject in the past here:
Google Sitemaps - The Simpler Way
And here:
Google Blog: Webmaster-friendly
The procedure Google recommends, utilizing a Python script with the need of Shell access to your server, is out of reach for many.
"Google Sitemaps - The Simpler Way" is definitely simple. You simply download Xenu, a free sitemap program, enter the results into a handly form that is available on their site and viola, you have a sitemap.xml file. The down side to this is that it doesn't enable you to tell how often Google should come back to each page or how important each page is.
Well, I'm happy to report that the free tools continue to get easier and better.
This tool:
Google Sitemap Generator and Editor is actually simpler and more feature-rich than any other automated system I've used so far.
It's very simple. These are the instructions found on the home page:
Enter the base URL of your site and click Create Map . The page will refresh (after a while) with a list of the pages from your site. Any pages that could not be loaded will be flagged. (Uncheck these entries) Uncheck pages you do not want to include. Edit LastModified, ChangeFrequency and Priority for individual pages, or increment-decrementfor all by clicking arrows.
Click XML SiteMap to display the map. You can toggle between XML Sitemap view and Edit Map view to edit the sitemap.
When it's correct, click anywhere in the Map view, right click and copy. Paste into notepad, save as sitemap.xml, upload to your server and submit the sitemap to Google.
Click HTML SiteMap to create a HTML map of your site. You can save and put this in the root of your site and link to it from your pages to make it easier for Google to follow the links, and provide a general Sitemap for your visitors. Click Gogglize to display a page with unique words from the Title and Description tags from all the pages on your site. Select an action from the radiobutton list and click the word to go to Google Search, Google Images, Google Definitions, Google Adwords or Overture suggestions for the word.
It has a "Show Filters and Setting" dropdown menu that allows you to tell the program what kind of files to index, where to start the crawling and filtering out links containing certain things.
I quickly created two sitemaps in a matter of a couple minutes. Now I'll upload the file to my server and go over here:
Google Sitemaps and let Google know about them.
Happy sitemap creating!|W|P|112368215407062650|W|P|Review of Google Sitemap Generator and Editor|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/10/2005 06:42:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|We're seeing more and more pay per call services. That is excellent news for the advertiser. If you are testing these things, check out this article:
SuperPages Rolls Out Pay-Per-Call|W|P|112367415333744575|W|P|Pay-Per-Call at SuperPages|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/08/2005 09:53:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|A report released in July 2004 by The National Partnership for Women & Families found that pregnancy discrimination complaints have increased 39% from 1992 to 2003, even though the nation's birthrate has dropped by nine percent.
Whether the suits have merit or not, clearly pregnant women are "feeling" discriminated against and, in my opinion, that's enough to make it a business issue worth addressing. As a recently pregnant business owner (I had to keep the blog title manageable � he's 9 months old), I empathize both with Google and with Christina.
The Google Suit
Google has an image of caring about their workers with a foosball tolerant, dog-loving culture and a focus on helping workers balance life and work with great maternity and paternity benefits. That is why the news of Christina Elwell's pregnancy bias suit against Google is so hard to believe. Not Google, right? They love workers and babies and worker's babies!
The suit, which you can read here, claims that after Elwell broke the news of being pregnant with quadruplets, her job was eliminated and then she was demoted, fired, rehired, and then demoted again after medical leave. Google says the lawsuit "is without merit and we will defend vigorously against it." I kind of suspect "defend vigorously" will shake out into "settle quickly."
My Take on This Issue
If the allegations of the case are true, it sounds like the employee-centered culture was not being embraced by middle management. Her manager is quoted as allegedly calling her or her situation "an HR nightmare." But, I empathize because, let's face it -- he's right. And I suspect that comment, while insensitive, came from her manager's feelings of bitterness and betrayal. Here is this top performing sales executive, at the top of her game, recently made sales director. Google loves her and she loves Google. And then one day she tells her boss that she loves her career so much that she has chosen to implant (I am speculating) not one but four embryos into her uterus, and it's not going well. She's going to miss a lot of work these next nine months. And after that? Don't ask -- it's illegal.
As a manager, even if you have the caring heart of a saint, this news makes you want to throw up. Of course she's not going to consult you about the decisions she makes with her family and her uterus; you know that logically. But you cannot help but feel betrayed. All the time invested into her career, all the training, and she has chosen to do IVF right now. Let's face it; it seems like she doesn't value her job. Or certainly, she values it second to a family. And now she's heading for a family of four instantly. Does her career honestly stand a chance? What do you say now as she sits across from you?
Now here's the flip side. If your employee-centered culture has really permeated middle management, your manager will be able to sincerely say (without 5 minutes of hesitation or further questioning), "Congratulations!! This is so exciting!" That's because he or she will not see a revenue stream sitting in the chair across from them, but a person. I have to believe Christina's manager made the mistake of seeing her as a revenue stream. Before the pregnancy, a beautiful flowing incoming stream with lots of future flow potential. Then suddenly that flow was not only dammed up but was backwashing out through HR in "nightmare" fashion with short term disability, maternity leave, and a potentially vacant job held open in vain for a woman with 4 kids.
But when you realize that this pregnant revenue stream is really a person, you can also realize that like all humans she struggled to make this decision. And she is most likely open to being influenced by her environment. Not only is her future uncertain, but probably very flexible.
Keep these things in mind when an employee tells you she is pregnant:
* If my iVillage pregnancy discussion board participation has taught me anything, it is that there is a high likelihood she has not made up her mind about returning to work.
* If she's come far and succeeded in her career (read into also as fairly compensated), there is a higher likelihood she wants to keep the job, if at all possible.
* What makes balancing a child and a career possible? The company does. If this experience is met with unconditional support, there is a higher likelihood she'll make efforts to balance her career with family. That's speculation, but pretty common sense, don't you think? And by support I mean emotional and logistical.
* Her husband might be the one staying home. Really.
* As a business owner, if you create (or claim to have) an employee-centered culture, do it because you actually care about the people in your organization, not because some business book told you it will help with retention. Because if the culture is real, then your management staff will believe in it -- for themselves and for their employees. And that means they will say things like, "Having four babies must be scary. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help along the way." As opposed to, "Wow. This situation is an HR nightmare."
As it turned out, Christina had one child. I imagine she could have been back at work full force as a high contributor to Google after a few months. Instead she's gone from HR nightmare to PR nightmare. Regardless of the merit of Elwell's case, Google failed on this one. That's my ruling anyway.|W|P|112351291302685003|W|P|Google's Pregnancy Discrimination Suit -- A Pregnant Business Owner Weighs In|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/06/2005 10:03:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Here's a great interview with Jason Calacanis, who says he is on track to make $1 million this year with Google AdSense.
I don't doubt his story in the least. AdSense is truly this good. I'm telling you, you owe to yourself to check this out. Google AdSense is changing the way commerce is being done. It is a true "disruptive technology."
If you have a hobby or a personal interest that you would like to share with people, I would highly suggest considering turning it into a blog and then placing some Google AdSense ads on it. You won't be sorry.
Here's a snippet of advice Jason gives in the article:
"What is the best piece of advice you have for a publisher brand new to AdSense? What would you have done differently when you started with AdSense, knowing what you do now.
I would have run four ads per page, taken off the borders, and made the links the same color as the links on the blog. I would have also made channels for each position and blog so I could track things better."
Now get going over here and read the rest of it:
Interview with the AdSense million dollar man, Jason Calacanis - JenSense.com|W|P|112334058214153495|W|P|Jason Calacanis - Google AdSense Success Story|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/05/2005 03:44:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Google has put together a very interesting image showing where people look most often on a web page. Different areas are colored for their "hotness". A dark orange area represents most hot - strongest performance, to light yellow representing least hot - weakest performance.
It's interesting to see how people are most likely viewing your web pages. I recommend checking it out:
Where should I place Google ads on my pages?|W|P|112327469943024804|W|P|Google Heat Map|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/05/2005 01:32:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|In Part 1:
SageRock Web Marketing Weblog: Should I try Google AdSense? Part 1
We discussed all of the advantages of Google AdSense.
But the question now is: Is it right for your business web site?
My initial response is probably not. For Google AdSense to be successful, people must click out of your site probably going to your competitor's site. You very well might have cut off your nose to spite your face. You may have made a $1 but lost thousands.
On the other hand, say you have a lot of content. Maybe you write a blog such as something like the SageRock Web Marketing Weblog. Are the people who are reading your blog in the active buying cycle? Are they ready to buy from you now? If you have good content, might they come back to your site on a regular basis to see what you are writing? Is it possible that an AdSense ad displayed in your content might not be in direct competition to you? In our case, could an AdSense ad be about web marketing but maybe not be something that we offer as a service. Possibly what the person who came to our site needed was provided by a Google AdSense ad. But we would not be able to help them.
I remember watching a special on the porn industry online. Pornography is always doing cutting edge things. The person being interviewed said that he often put competitors' ads on his site. His feeling was that if he didn't have anything to offer a visitor it was better to get a little money by selling his visitor to a competitor than getting no money at all.
I personally would like to put some AdSense ads on this blog. But so far I've been voted down. I completely understand why. It might be a bad move. But maybe some people on our team will read this post and be pursuaded.
In conclusion, if you decide to test some AdSense ads on your business web site, you should be very aware of what you are doing. You are intentionally trying to pursuade people to leave your site for someone else's site. If this doesn't fit in with your overall web marketing strategy I wouldn't suggest it. However, if you are aware of what you are doing, it may be a very savvy marketing strategy. Your decision lies within where you are on the cutting edge of marketing.
Best Wishes.|W|P|112326995591931846|W|P|Should I try Google AdSense? Part 2|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/05/2005 12:56:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|If you aren't aware of the program yet, Google AdSense is a system put out by Google that allows you to display Google AdWords ads on your site. Google then pays you a percentage of every click you send to these AdWords advertisers.
In the world of content-rich web sites, it is becoming a regular invasion. People writing content on a topic of their choice put a line of code in their template. And then Google serves up a series of ads that they feel represents the topic discussed.
It's super easy for the publisher. And it is a great avenue of exposing ads on a tremendous number of web sites.
These ads can come in endless colors and layouts. All of these ads are quickly placed in your site by telling Google AdSense the size and color you need. Then the code is generated and then you just copy & paste to code into your site where ever you would like it displayed.
It's easy and a great source of revenue. As a outsourced web marketing solution for companies we did very little work in the Google AdSense arena. We did, however, do a lot with Google AdWords for our clients. We saw how much traffic this program was producing for them. So we wanted to experiment with the other side: Google AdSense.
This is what I can tell you from our experience.
We have several small, niche-oriented sites that we have tested this on. We have a local Akron Ohio site, and several personal blogs. We have placed Google AdSense ads on all of these sites in their templates.
We are now in our third month of testing. In the first two months we made about a total of $200. Now, in the first 4 days of August we have made $50. Our short experience has been that our daily spend tends to go down as the month goes on. We think this is probably because people's monthly budget runs out towards the end of the month. Then it is refilled at the beginning of the month. So we are on track to probably making $300 this month.
The great thing is that general interest content tends to generate continual traffic. As an example, I have posts on Wal-mart history and 1 Corinthians 13. These particular posts are just generating endless traffic. I suspect those topics won't lessen in the near future. So, I'm finding that the content just continues to compound on itself. And the funny thing is that I was going to write this content anyway. So now I'm developing a long-term revenue stream from this content.
The next topic I want to discuss is whether or not AdSense is right for your business web site.
SageRock Web Marketing Weblog: Should I try Google AdSense? Part 2|W|P|112326658332619509|W|P|Should I try Google AdSense? Part 1|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/04/2005 02:01:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|This is an interesting article which lists some of the more common penalties of Google, MSN and Yahoo.
They're pretty interesting and you might be surprised at some:
Search Engine Penalties at Yahoo & MSN|W|P|112318206214617526|W|P|Search Engine Penalties at Yahoo & MSN|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/03/2005 06:19:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Yahoo Launches Beta �AdSense�
Today you can sign up for the beta Yahoo! Publisher Network, which is their version of the well-established Google�s AdSense program. In case you haven�t heard, these programs populate your website with Google and Yahoo paid search ads, and you get a portion of the revenue.
Who should do AdSense and Yahoo�s Publisher Network?
Every website online that is not trying to convert leads directly within that site. That means every content-oriented, information site; every directory; every non-profit site; every blog; every portal; and every other appropriate content site I forgot to mention.
Your blog about how you drink every night. Your X-mas wish list that you obnoxiously put online. Your family picture website. Every piece of content you throw out there into cyber space can have AdSense ads right next to it generating revenue for you. Why not?
There is one �Why Not.� Your commercial business website should pass on this opportunity because you�re trying to convert people to a most wanted response (or you should be) like newsletter sign up or a sale, which means keeping them on the website. So making a stray $1 to lose them to a Google advertiser is not worth it. And, of course, putting AdSense on your site means ads directing people to your competition could appear.
Oh, and affiliate marketers would know that they wouldn�t bother with AdSense on their sites if they�re getting better payouts from specific partner ads. Of course, creating sites for top paying AdSense ads is a fun career path.
A Few Details
Here are some details of Yahoo�s program, but we haven�t signed up yet. In AdSense, after you sign up (this involves filling out an online form and responding to an email), Google sends a media spider to determine the subject matter of your content and then serves up text or banner ads, and a link unit, depending on what you selected. You can have 3 ad units and 1 link unit.
Based on our experience, we recommend you get the text ads and the link unit. But you should ideally do your own trials to figure out what ads convert best for your audience. Text ads are just that, vs. banners. And link units are little text links that take visitors to a page hosted by Google that then has a search-listing-esk variety of advertisers on it. Visitors to our content sites love those. You can also choose ad unit sizes.|W|P|112311160854321176|W|P|Yahoo! Publisher Network -Yahoo Launches Beta �AdSense�|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com8/02/2005 07:37:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|"An unofficial Google Maps blog tracking the websites, ideas and tools being influenced by Google Maps."
People are doing a lot of interesting things with Google Maps these days. You might check this place out:
Google Maps Mania (All the links to the variations are on the right column.)|W|P|112298623966704575|W|P|Google Maps Mania|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com