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There Were Three in the Bed and the Little One Said….. »
Posted on April 22nd, 2008 by Paul Woodhouse in PPC, Paid Search, Search Engines | 1 Comment
It’s happened again.
I’m sure I’ve bored you previously with some of my wife’s dream tales, but I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned that I also wind up in her dream dog house.
Most guys’ lives are tense enough with their better half’s incessant suspicions as to whatever particular reason they have for being particularly suspicious without coming a cropper during her sleep.
The other morning, I was sat checking my emails waiting for Steph to hurry up with my caffeine explosion, when she sidled over, scowled at me and plainly accused me of cheating on her in one of dreams during the night.
No “Good Morning, sweetheart” or anything remotely friendly beforehand, just a straight out accusation of sleep-induced witnessed adultery. I didn’t help matters by grinning smugly as she divulged certain details - especially considering I obviously had it going on in her dream due to me exiting a ‘van full of girls’ (or would that be exciting?).
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TAGS: google, hd dvd, microsoft, PPC, yahoo
Yahoo! Scraps Minimum Keyword Bid »
Posted on April 18th, 2008 by Paul Woodhouse in PPC, Paid Search | 1 Comment
You remember that Yahoo! PPC breaking news we broke back in December, do you not? You know, when we got secret inside word of them scrapping minimum keyword bids. And by secret inside word I’m referring to an email we received.
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TAGS: minimum keyword bid, PPC, yahoo
The Yahoo! Junk Boom Effect vs The Facebook Baby Boomer Blitz »
Posted on October 17th, 2007 by Paul Woodhouse in PPC, Search Engines, Social Media | 2 Comments
Every once in a while my fellow search compadre here at Direct Online Marketing™ Towers, Katie, will amaze me with a succinct summing-up of a particular aspect of the search marketing landscape.
During a recent analysis of a rather sizeable pay per click campaign that we’ve just snagged, her notes alluded to something called ‘The Yahoo! Junk Boom Effect’.
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TAGS: facebook, PPC, yahoo
The Essential Web Site Check List – Part 3 »
Posted on April 22nd, 2007 by Justin Seibert in PPC, Paid Search, SEO, Search Engines, Web Development | Leave A Comment
First of all, I want to apologize for using Pittsburgh Pirate Ronny Paulino in my post about content management systems (step #2). He’s probably my favorite Bucco and it’s clear that I jinxed him. So no q&a today. The Pirates, set for a resurgence, don’t need me adding bad luck to the cause.
With mea culpa out of the way, let’s explore why you should think about Google, Yahoo! and those other search engines when you’re having your Web site developed or redeveloped. Continue reading →
TAGS: cms, google, keywords, meta tegs, PPC, SEO, Web Development, yahoo
Good Friday? No, the Best »
Posted on April 5th, 2007 by Justin Seibert in Online Advertising, PPC, Paid Search, SEM, Search Engines | Leave A Comment
I just received a notice from Yahoo! that I thought was worth sharing. They are changing their policy so that “short ads” (70 characters maximum) will be required on all ad sets. You can still write long descriptions for ads, but they must be accompanied by short ad counterparts. Beginning this June, Yahoo.com’s search results will only display the short, 70 character ad descriptions.
Allowing advertisers to add both short and long descriptions was a new feature for Yahoo!’s massive Panama update that began in the 4th quarter of last year and finished up only recently. In the old system, advertisers could only list short ads and had to have individual ads for each keyword. Continue reading →
TAGS: google, PPC, yahoo
Hotels.com does Not have a Checkbox for Fireproof »
Posted on November 29th, 2006 by Justin Seibert in Local News, Online Advertising, PPC, Search Engines | Leave A Comment
One of the great things about working in downtown Wheeling is that there are so many beautiful older buildings and home. That’s also one of the negatives as some of these structures are in disrepair and many are unoccupied (although it helps keep our lease rates down).
While walking to work today, I noticed the facade of one of these older buildings that advertised “Rogers Fireproof Hotel”. Using 2006 eyes, the advertisement seems strange. We all just assume hotels are fireproof. But at the time, this was an important selling point for this brick structure, perhaps its unique selling proposition, or usp, in modern day terms.
This hotel, from all appearances, is no longer in operation. Were it, surely it would have changed its signage by now. Likewise, businesses and marketing firms need to update creative copy periodically, too.
Hopefully you’ve tested or are currently testing your ads already so that you know what’s working best for you. Even if you have, if it’s been awhile, take a new eye to your print and Web ads - same can go for tv or radio. If you haven’t looked at it in eons, you can probably view it fairly objectively again, although having someone that doesn’t know anything or much about your business (think parents, neighbors, guy in the speedo at the Y) look at ads and tell you what they think you’re trying to say.
And even though search engine marketing accounts like Google and Yahoo! allow you to now put up multiple ads and they will rotate the ads so that better performing ads show more often, it’s not auto-pilot forever.
Is there anything in the news that makes your ad obsolete or that you could use for a temporary advantage?
And if it’s been a really long while, are you no longer able to offer that special or free report? No one’s going to sign up for a free Y2K preparedness kit anymore.
So dust off those old ads to see if you can put more gold in your pan. And see the following links for more blog posts about internet and search engine marketing.
direct online marketing
direct and online marketing
online marketing
internet marketing
search engine marketing
search marketing
TAGS: adwords, google, wheeling, yahoo
Search Getting Smarter »
Posted on November 27th, 2006 by Justin Seibert in SEO, Search Engines | Leave A Comment
If you watch sports or The Daily Show, no doubt you’ve seen the commercial for Gears of War at least a dozen times by now. That’s the video game with the real catchy tune - “All around me are familiar faces. Warn out places, warn out faces.”
Curious about the song, I asked Yahoo! “what’s the song on the commercial for Gears of War”. The top natural result was - get ready - useful. It took me to a page on Yahoo! Answers out of Australia that told me the song’s a cover of the Tears for Fears song Mad World by Gary Jules. But you already knew that, didn’t you smart guy? Well, aover 1,000 other people were searching for that same information in October so go ahead, feather your bangs, put on your parachute pants and get on your I’m-the-80’s-music-queen/king high horse.
Just from this one tiny example, it’s pretty apparent that the use of social media is helping search engines return more relevant results. While search engines have largely done a great job of showing you where you want to go to find what you’re looking for, we’ve all experienced seeing links that just don’t seem to make sense.
 In addition to being genuinely impressed with how quickly I got the answer to my seemingly archaic question (I guess I’m not special) I decided to write about this today because I talk to a lot of business owners that just don’t understand why their companies - with relevant content written by experts - doesn’t come up in the natural listings above some of these “bad” links.
I tell them not to feel bad because it can be difficult for even experts in the industry that spend all of their work days on getting listings to show up higher (search engine optimization). Google uses over 100 different variables like the length of time a site’s been up to how many times a particular term and its synonyms are used in a page to how many and which sites link to those pages in its algorithm. And that algorithm’s guarded more closely than Colonel Sanders’ secret spices.
It’s too difficult for the majority of businesses to have the time and expertise to make sure their Web sites show up for related search engine queries above their competitors.  That’s why you should turn to an internet marketing firm with the expertise in search engine optimization to help, like, Direct Online Marketing. They’re pretty good if you like 6′5, 230 pound quarterbacks, laser rocket arm. (Except big games don’t get caught in our throats and we don’t have an overrated brother that gets attention because of his name and playing in a huge market.)
You can get your business ranked higher so that potential clients can find you. It just takes a little know-how, patience, and time. You never want to get taken for a ride, but keep in mind that no matter how good a firm is, it will take a little time for the search engines to pick up their changes and that ongoing work is often required to keep listings high.
TAGS: google, SEO, yahoo
Search Engine Marketing for Schools »
Posted on November 12th, 2006 by Justin Seibert in DOM News, Online Marketing, SEM, SEO | Leave A Comment
When someone asks me what my company does, I usually say that we help businesses increase sales and quality leads through targeted online marketing. If a company is a sales organization and truly wants to increase its sales, we can help.
The one problem I currently have with my description is that not everyone thinks of the words “business” and “sales” the same way I do.
For example, some of the heaviest online marketing investment is for educational facilities. It began with online colleges like Phoenix and has blossomed to brick-and-mortar colleges and universities. Now private schools, boarding schools, parochial schools, and schools for at-risk youth are discovering they can increase enrollment - or just increase the quality of their enrollment - through online marketing.
Online schools can obviously market almost anywhere - they don’t care whether students come from Bar Harbor, ME or Chula Vista, CA. Last month there were over 4.5 million searches for “online college”* - even more than just “college” - so even though there’s a lot of competition, there are a lot of potential “clients” to reach.
The power of geo-targeting allows day schools with physical locations to target only students (or students’ parents) within a drivable distance, say 15-50 miles. Search engine optimization is probably more effective than search engine marketing for these schools unless they’re in major metropolitan areas just because of search volume by geographic region.
Most “colleges” (1.78 million), “boarding schools” (151,000), and “military academies” (22,000) - the numbers in parentheses represent searches per month for those particular terms - may be able to enroll students from any area, but they may also find that they have an easier time selling students from a particular state or region. A school in West Virginia or Arkansas, for example, may not think it’s worth it to try the New England prep scene region and opt instead for the South or Mid-Atlantic.
By advertising on specialities of your school, such as being a “culinary school” (107,000), helping students get “biotechnology jobs” (111,000), or helping “troubled teens” (53,000) you can both differentiate yourself and reach more people with less competition.
By the same token, maybe a boarding school has had students come to it from Japan, Switzerland, or South Korea in the past and wants to try to reach more people from that region. Why not advertise on “American boarding school” (2500) in those regions? You can even have your students help you write the ads and landing pages in the appropriate language.
If you work in admissions for a school that would like to increase its enrollment, please give us a call at 1-800-979-3177 to discuss how we can help you meet your goals.
* A note about my statistics: I base my search volume numbers on the number of overall searches last month on Yahoo for the United States and English speaking Canada, which has about a fifth of the market share of searches in these locations and then multiply these numbers by five (5) to come up with an approximate total # of searches across all search engines per month. Singular and plural versions of the keywords have been combined unless otherwise noted. And remember, these are only numbers for high level keywords. By expanding your list, you can come up with many many times greater numbers of searches.
Of course these numbers will vary by month. If you want to see how search volumes vary over the course of several months, might I suggest Google Trends. A pretty good tool, although search volumes have to be pretty high to show you a trend over the past couple years.
TAGS: google, keywords, SEM, SEO, yahoo
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