SEM

Goals are Your Friend in Google Analytics (Unlike France in the World Cup) »
Posted on June 23rd, 2010 by Justin Seibert in Analytics, Google Adwords, Paid Search, SEM, Search Engines | 3 Comments

Update: USA! USA! USA!

Update 2: England advances, putting both official DOM rooting interests through to the next round.

Since the television down here in Wheeling is on the USA game and the one in Cleveland is focused on the Three Lions*, I couldn’t resist making a World Cup reference in today’s post.  Get to throw a hackneyed joke about Les Bleus* – approximately the 495,000th one on the internet since last night – and winner winner chicken dinner.

The point of the post, however, is not to rip on the French for – among many, many other indiscretions – refused to practice ahead of their final World Cup game, which I just can’t wrap my brain around.  No, instead it is to tell you about two recently released features in Google Analytics that you absolutely need to know and how you can take advantage of it to improve your AdWords campaigns.

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TAGS: ad positions, adwords, bafana bafana, conversion rates, dayparting, google analytics goals, knowing is half the battle, les bleus, three lions

How Much of Your Budget Are You Re-Allocating to SEM? »
Posted on April 7th, 2010 by Justin Seibert in Google Adwords, Local Search, Microsoft adCenter, Paid Search, SEM, SEO, Yahoo Search Marketing | 2 Comments

First thing’s first.  Despite what some people in the industry say search engine marketing, or SEM, refers to all forms of marketing, optimizing, and advertising through / to / with search engines.  Primarily that means paid search and search engine optimization plus all related disciplines and offshoots like local search, press optimization, etc.

Often people use SEM just to refer to paid search marketing, often also referred to as pay per click, or ppc (Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft adCenter, et al).  If I’m having a conversation with a prospective client who uses SEM that way, I’ll go along for the sake of conversation, but you, loyal reader, should know better.  Not picking on anyone here; there’s a lot of confusion around the term – even Google itself uses it this way in their AdWords testing materials.

Alright.  Now that we’re straight, let’s dive into SEMPO’s just released 2010 State of Search Engine Marketing Report, which you can buy here if you want to curl up with 112 pages and some cocoa late at night.  Here are some key findings taken from the report synopsis and MediaPost’s write-up (hence the dueling bullet point styles): Continue reading →

TAGS: allocating marketing budgets, local seo, mediapost, SEM, sempo

Free Google AdWords Audits »
Posted on December 4th, 2009 by Justin Seibert in DOM News, Google Adwords, Microsoft adCenter, Paid Search, SEM, Search Engines, Yahoo Search Marketing | 7 Comments

Just a quick housekeeping note: we wanted to announce a site we launched offering free Google AdWords audits. Good for Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter, too, but AdWords seems to be the one most people are interested in since it takes about 2/3 of the market and usually more than that out of an advertiser’s pay per click budget.

It’s pretty low key – no fees, no contract, no obligation.  We’ll even sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement.  Just give us access to your account and we’ll grade how well you’re doing and give you some tips on how to optimize your paid search accounts for better ROI.  And hey – if it turns out you’d like to have us do some work for you, too, well that would just be peachy. 

On that note, I also wanted to point out that you can get varying levels of help on your pay per click accounts based on your needs and budgets.

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TAGS: google adwords, Microsoft adCenter, pay per click management, ppc audits, Yahoo! Search Markeeting

Yahoo! & Microsoft Sign Search Deal Prenup »
Posted on July 30th, 2009 by Paul Woodhouse in Google - SEO, Microsoft adCenter, SEM, SEO, Search Engines, Yahoo Search Marketing | 10 Comments

Well the world of search is all a flutter with news of the merger between Yahoo! and Microsoft. It’s by no means easy to avoid, but the main crux of the deal as highlighted on ChoiceValueInnovation.com, the website created solely for news about the partnership, is as follows:
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TAGS: bing, microsoft, yaho microsoft search deal, yahoo

Poor Lois Feldman – The Speaker, Not the Bathroom Party Time Lady »
Posted on December 2nd, 2008 by Justin Seibert in Paid Search, SEM, SEO, Search Engine Reputation Management, Social Media, Web Credibility | 1 Comment

By now you’ve probably heard the story about Lois Feldman.  If not, here’s a quick recap:

Lois was arrested for doing her Humpty Hump (of Digital Underground fame) Burger King bathroom impression in the stall of a public bathroom at a college football game recently.  That’s pretty embarrasing, especially in today’s internet age.

But you know what’s really embarrassing?

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TAGS: bad business bureau, branding, Digital Underground, kitten hijacking, Lois Feldman, online reputation management, Plaxico Burress, reputation management for attorneys, Scott Boras

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