An advertisement is only as effective as its content. If the content doesn't reach out to potential customers and make a compelling case, the ad doesn't make the sale, which means the people at your business never get the chance to do the same. But even good ads can get lost in the shuffle of cyberspace if they don't have the right keywords. Just as the content is what determines whether a consumer contacts a business, it also is what makes the difference in whether a business surfaces during a query. What content makes for a successful advertisement? The Yellow Pages indu [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

Microsoft has added Virtual Earth "Birds Eye" panoramas to Live Search image search results. They appear to be live in the US only right now and around selected points of interest (images below) but they're very striking. You can pan and zoom and switch from a Birds Eye view to aerial or map views and back. Statue of Liberty Coit Tower (San Francisco) Navy Pier (Chicago) For locations that don't immediately appear in image search results, users can click on the map link and find a Birds Eye view of a desired location in Virtual Earth. Microsoft should probably conside [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local

YouTube had added a couple new things over the weekend. The more exciting feature is that you can now link to a starting point within a YouTube video. The other feature is that you can now customize the YouTube home page, based on your preferences. TechCrunch described the feature as "deep linking" to specific points within the video. For example, if you want to skip to the portion of my last search video (I do them weekly), where I talk about the Google AdSense and Analytics integration, I just link to youtube.com/watch?v=OP1-5uxZffE#t=1m49s. Note, the #t=1m49s tells YouTube to start t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Google: YouTube & Video

Google announced the release of Google Earth for the iPhone (iTunes link). It is a free app that brings many of the features of the desktop version of Google Earth, to your iPhone. I played around a bit with the app and I am very impressed. It takes advantage of many of the iPhone's capabilities. Clearly features such as the GPS are used, but it also uses the accelerometer that allows you to tilt the iPhone and it moves the maps around. Panoramio layers are available, so are geo-located Wikipedia articles. You can also search the maps for cities, businesses and so on, but it also integr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Earth | Google: Maps & Local | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Top News

Recently, those that are close to me have noticed a new obsession.  I've always been tethered to my Blackberry reading e-mails, twitter, blogs and other online fodder as I'm on the road (and, I shouldn't admit, while driving - watch out for me on the road). But recently I've found a new item to look at. I'm obsessed with the Dow Jones Industrial Average. I type in "djia" into Google on my mobile phone probably  4-5 times an hour when I'm on the road and more when I'm in the office on my computer. Basically, I love a good drama, and Dow Jones Industrial Average has provided that drama in [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Industrial Strength

How do you measure the value of an ad if it's one of several in a campaign? If a customer purchases your product after clicking on 3 search ads, which ad should get credit for the sale? Should branded search get more credit? What about the combination of online and offline ads? Next Tuesday, October 28 at 1 PM EST, our sister company, Search Marketing Now, is hosting a webcast, "Measuring an Ad's Value: A Forum Discussion," sponsored by ClearSaleing. This webcast will explore attribution management, or how to properly value your online advertising. Attribution management is the practice [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Conferences

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Search In Pictures: Jimmy Buffett At Google, Vint Cerf Mad Scientist, & Halloween At GoogleIn this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Jimmy Buffett performs at Google: Google’s Vint Cerf looks like a mad scientist here: Google Chrome Banner in Taipei [...] Goo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

In this week's Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Jimmy Buffett performs at Google: Google's Vint Cerf looks like a mad scientist here: Google Chrome Banner in Taipei city? Halloween Display @ Googleplex [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Search In Pictures

A New (Fighter) Jet for Google’s Founders? from the New York Times reports Google has added a new jet to their fleet of Boeings. The new Jet is actually a fighter jet, commonly known as an Alpha Jet. This jet has rights to land at Moffett Field, like the others. NASA told the NY Times that this jet will be outfitted with "scientific instruments for NASA missions, including instruments that the other planes could not carry." Matt Furman, a Google spokesman, told the NY Times, "because of the type of aircraft we are talking about, NASA now has the ability to do even more than they could [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Jet | Top News

The Gmail team has been busy over the last few days. They have added emoticons to mail messages, created a new labs project for canned responses and updated their mobile client for J2ME-supported phones and Blackberry devices. The emoticons are new to Gmail messages, but not new to Google Talk. Google has not only added emoticons to mail messages, but has also added the number of emoticons available in Google Talk. Here are pictures of all the emoticons currently available: The canned responses addition looks very neat. You can set up certain rules based on Gmail filters and th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Gmail

In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: news from the search engines, today’s in-depth look: search stats you need to know (September 2008), Google's new, free display ad builder, and this week’s free tips and tools. News from the search engines Google AdWords: Separate metrics for Google and search partners are now available As reported on the Inside AdWords blog, and in the spirit of transparency, Google is finally breaking out stats between Go [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Search Marketing Toolbox

As the head of a search agency, I admit that I was somewhat bemused at first by this whole financial crisis we’re having. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t like seeing people suffer, and it hurts to see the impact that a slowing economy is having on many of my friends and neighbors. But as a longtime critic of traditional media and promoter of Search, I couldn’t resist feeling a little smug knowing that traditional ad budgets were about to be cut and the move to online media accelerated as advertisers started focusing more heavily on ROI. Given that Search accounts for almost half of online [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Search & Usability

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: A Preview Of SMX LondonSMX London is coming up fast, and we’ve put together a great agenda with world-class speakers. Perhaps the best part, for those of you who weren’t able to attend our sold-out SMX Advanced conference, is that we’re running an SMX advanced track for the first time at the London show. This is cutting-edge content that [...] Google AdWords: Now With ImagesSome AdWords ads on Google are now showing associated imag [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

SMX London is coming up fast, and we've put together a great agenda with world-class speakers. Perhaps the best part, for those of you who weren't able to attend our sold-out SMX Advanced conference, is that we're running an SMX advanced track for the first time at the London show. This is cutting-edge content that you won't find anywhere else. We've also got a special keynote, Empowering Search Marketers - The Next Generation, that I'm especially excited about. I personally believe that the next big leap forward in search innovation is about to arrive. The past few years have seen the intr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Conferences

Some AdWords ads on Google are now showing associated images -- and getting much larger in the space they take up -- through a "Show products from" Plus Box implementation that some are seeing now when searching at Google. For example, try search for bluenile, which brings up a Blue Nile ad. Under the usual ad title and description is a plus symbol (called a Plus Box), followed by the words, "Show products from Blue Nile for bluenile." If you click on the box, it opens up three product listings from Blue Nile, each listing with an associated image. The most shocking part of this ad is t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Top News

To build, or not to build, that is the question (with apologies to Shakespeare): Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous SEM Tools, Or to take arms against a sea of in-house engineers...... I know more than a few in-house SEMers. Many of them insist on building in-house SEM tools, as opposed to using what's out there in the market. Here are the most popular reasons: "Our volume is so high that the economics justify building our own tools." "Our SEM needs are specific to our business." "SEM is our core competency." "We won't share our da [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Industrial Strength

Click Forensics has released their estimated 3rd quarter click fraud numbers that they track. The numbers remain pretty much the same, at least as it pertains to the overall estimated industry average click fraud rate. The rate is now 16.0%, down from last quarter's 16.2%. The main change was that botnets were said to be responsible for 27.6 percent of the click fraud, up 10% from last quarter. The average estimated click fraud rate of on the content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 27.1 percent, which is down from the 27.6 percent rate of the pre [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Legal: Clickfraud

Not long ago, Google rolled out its "Geolocation API" (via Google Gears). Initially it was intended to enable third party publishers and developers to get location for their apps on mobile devices using a combination of the phone's inherent location-awareness technologies (i.e., GPS) and Google's cell-tower database (which has been expanded now to include WiFi locations). However it also works for destkop browsers, provided that Gears is installed on the computer. Here's the Google Code Blog discussing the impact: When we originally proposed the Gears Geolocation API our goal was to make i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Features: General | Google: AdWords | Google: Maps & Local | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Ads: General | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: Search Ads

Picture this: You've spent two months creating a website for your small business. You've poured yourself into it. The web site is a thing of beauty, and it showcases your work very effectively. But no one can find it. Six months go by, and you're not getting any traffic from search engines. You type your business name into Google and ... nothing. Not even your own website. Think it sounds far-fetched? It's not. It happened to Kim Koehler, a professional photographer in Littleton, Colorado. I've never met Kim, and have no business relationship with her, but I believe her story is a goo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Small Is Beautiful

My favorite search browser plugin, Inquisitor, is now available for Firefox and Internet Explorer. Inquisitor was Apple Safari's only solid third-party search browser plugin back in the day. Yahoo acquired them back in May and then provided an upgrade in mid-August. Now, Yahoo has announced they have made this plugin available for Firefox and IE. If you are running Firefox 2 or 3, you can download the addon over here. If you are running IE 7 or 8, you can download the plugin over here. I highly recommend you give it a try and check out some of the customizations I deployed on Inqui [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Firefox | Toolbars & Add-Ons | Yahoo: Search