Marketing on the Web
I have assisted with a number of product beta’s over the years, but was flattered when Microsoft contacted me to do an interview about my involvement in the AdCenter beta program. see: Thank You for Helping Improve Microsoft adCenter
MoreNeed a Website, Hire a Design Professional
Your company website has the role of a sales person, working 24/7, representing your company, answering questions, educating the prospect. Many times it will be the first impression prospects will have of your business and should convey quality at every turn. Like any good sales rep, its appearance should be a reflection of its audience, wearing tennis shoes if it’s selling skateboards and a suit if it’s selling financial advice. A website is in many cases the first impression someone has of ...
MoreAdd Multiple Owners to Google Webmaster Tools
Google added a feature to Webmaster Tools yesterday that I hope will find its way in to Business Listings and other services. Now, if you are verified owner of a website, you can simply add additional users to the Webmaster Tools account (through the verify link). This means site owners can add individuals that do development, marketing or optimization, without having to upload additional files or edit pages. This greatly simplifies things, giving owners a simple way to remove this access. Mo...
MoreSearch Marketing Exposition West 2010
I am attending the search optimization and marketing conference SMX West in Santa Clara next week. If you will be at the conference and would like to get together, drop me a note. For my customers, this is one of the larger industry events. While I follow in the neighborhood of 20 blogs on marketing and optimization all year, this show does a lot to pull all the information together. Confirming trends and many times is the launching point for new techniques and information.
MoreImproving Search Ranking with Dilbert
I couldn't resist posting this Dilbert cartoon strip from February 19. I am not sure if its the recognition that SEO has become mainstream enough to merit a Dilbert strip, or the fact that Scott Adams understands that sometimes sacrifices must be made to keep Google happy. Enjoy:
MoreImprove Page Load Times to Improve Page Rank
Last year Google said that load times would become a factor in determining your page rank. I have been toying with Joomla load times trying to speed things up and found two things that are very effective (and easy): In the >Global Configuration panel under >Server, enable gzip compression (duh!) Using this, the content the server send the info to the browser compressed so bandwidth isn’t as big of an issue. Install a CSS/Java compression plug-in. I used a plug-in CssJsCompress to ...
MoreGoogle AdWords Quality Score – Again
I have written several posts on Quality Score, but I recently found two articles on the subject that make it worth revisiting. Quality Score is Google’s way of assessing how relevant your paid search keywords are to the searchers you’re targeting. This article by by Craig Danuloff discusses in monetary terms what the real costs of a low-quality-score are and this recent article, also by by Danuloff suggests 5 Steps to Improve Your Quality Score.
MoreGoogle Adds Sitelinks to AdWords
This is very cool and while it wouldn't be appropriate for every ad, there are places were this could be very helpful. Sitelinks enable you to link to multiple services within a single ad. Imagine company listings for a business like My SEO firm with direct links to services like Search Optimization, Internet Marketing, and Website Audits. I am not sure how this will play into Google's quality score algorithm, but I am sure this aspect hasn't been overlooked. The downside, it only works when you...
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