Good design is the unsung hero of conversion optimization. Too often, when the topic of landing page design comes up, it’s dismissed superficially with canned prescriptions. Use an image of a person. Use bullets. Use video. Don’t use video. Put a call-to-action button in the lower right. Use the color green wherever possible. Such fortune […]
Consumer Watchdog, a consumer advocacy group that has targeted Google before, plans to call on the US government to start an antitrust investigation into Google and will suggest remedies that include breaking the company up. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, all of this will be detailed at a news conference Wednesday in Washington, DC. […]
This afternoon, I mentioned at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google Hong Kong was showing a white Google logo. The logo showed up a week or so ago on Google Poland as well. A Google spokesperson told me the logo is only displayed when Google wants to recognize a “current loss or tragedy.” Today the […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Yahoo Announces Q1 2010 Earnings: Income Up 87% Yahoo announced (PDF) their first quarter 2010 earnings and showed a revenue increase of 1% and income increase of 87% from the first […]
Yahoo announced (PDF) their first quarter 2010 earnings and showed a revenue increase of 1% and income increase of 87% from the first quarter of 2009 compared to the first quarter of 2010. Revenues were $1,597 million and income from operations was $188 million for the first quarter of 2010. Part of the revenues came […]
Google has announced a new tool that makes public the government requests it receives for data and content removal. It’s called Government Requests, and it currently shows requests that Google received between July 1 and December 31, 2009. Google admits, in a very detailed FAQ, that the data is not comprehensive. (The tool doesn’t include […]
To many, the process of developing a successful product can be a mystery. Sometimes companies will spend months of development time to create a product that doesn’t reflect the needs or the scope of its intended market. And other times, successful products are developed completely on accident. Because of this, it can often seem impossible […]
Any of you who have read any of my posts over the years know I’m a contrarian link builder. I don’t like general directories, I’ve never believed in mass article syndication, I don’t buy links, I don’t like reciprocity for the sake of reciprocity, and I despise press releases purely for the sake of link […]
Google received a letter from “privacy officials” in 10 countries with a list of complaints and demands surrounding privacy. The letter focuses on Buzz and the privacy fiasco that surrounded its launch, as well as StreetView. Here’s an excerpt from the letter: Buzz is a “hook” for government officials chronically unhappy with Google’s stand on […]
Google is deploying their virtual keyboards on the search results pages for their non-English based search portals. For example, you can see them live at Google Poland and Google Israel and Google Russia, amongst others. Here is a screen capture: As you can see, the keyboard icon is next to the search box. When you […]
The startup 80legs launched in September of last year to make web crawling affordable and accessible to anyone that wanted to subscribe to the service. The company makes crawling the web or customized slices of it available to even small companies. More flexible than something like the Google Custom Search Engine, pricing ranges from free […]
In this age of video, is it possible that some international marketers would be wise to shift their budgets not to website localization -- but to using the moving image? Perhaps video really is the universal language of search!
Google’s click-to-call offering has received a lot of attention over the past few months, and for good reason. There is great value in offering advertisers an option to track and monetize mobile Internet-driven phone leads. The model allows mobile consumers searching Google to click on the phone number in an ad to auto-dial the advertiser. […]
Google has decided to change the name of what was called the “Google Local Business Center” to “Google Places.” The rationale, according to the press release, is to better connect Google Place Pages with the place where local business information is claimed, entered and enhanced: Why? Millions of people use Google every day to find […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Yahoo Hires Ex-MSFT Blake Irving For ‘Product Vision’ One could argue that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz cut lots of fat at Yahoo and stabilized the organization after a period of takeover […]
One could argue that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz cut lots of fat at Yahoo and stabilized the organization after a period of takeover turbulence and uncertainty. To some degree she brought a kind of “vision” to the company (cut costs, focus on core strengths and content). However there’s also a sense that Yahoo is not […]
Business Insider reports that Google is planning on flying out some of their employees who are stranded in Europe due to the volcanic ash distributing scheduled air travel. Google will reportedly be using private jets to fly them out from European Google offices such as Dublin, London, and Zurich. Business Insider received this tip via […]
Ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland continues to ground flights across Europe. Indeed, I’m hosting a friend from Britain who can’t get home due to the volcanic ash crisis. This is an event made for mapping. So what have we got out there? Below, satellite images, a great New York Times airport closure tracker, […]
Venerable search marketing firm iCrossing is about to be acquired by publisher Hearst, according to the Wall Street Journal: Under the deal, which is in the final stages of negotiations, iCrossing, one of the nation’s biggest independent digital-marketing shops, is likely to fetch about $375 million, plus bonus payments if it reaches certain targets, these […]
In about two months, our thrice sold-out SMX Advanced search marketing conference returns to Seattle. Below, a personal virtual tour about why I believe this is a must attend event for serious search marketers. Learn more about the show and why you should book now, not only to save with the early bird deadline expiring […]
Link building has changed. Over the past several years, a shift has taken place that has removed much of the meritocratic, or natural reward, of high-quality content with quantities of high-quality links. This self-guided sharing by website owners is becoming rare. Competition and noise on the web, combined with financial incentive surrounding links, has made […]
At SMX West last month, in a session called “Supercharging Your Descriptions With Sitelinks,” Google Senior Product Manager Jerry Dischler covered various strategies related to Sitelinks—specifically for the new Google AdWords ad unit that offers additional links below the main destination URL. (There’s a similar new listing format for organic search as well, which may […]
Last week at the Chirp conference, Twitter announced three big initiatives that have the potential to collectively rock the world of local marketing:
Last week, Google made a bold move that some worry may block audiences from information and harm individuals. This move sent controversial shockwaves through the investment community and mainstream media! It was unorthodox and raised many questions! Or maybe not. The bold move? It issued its first quarter 2010 financial results on investor.google.com and said that […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Twitter May Release Some Deleted Usernames Within Weeks What’s happening with all those inactive and deleted usernames that Twitter has? Some of them will continue to be held back for a […]
International paid search offers the unprecedented ability to break into new markets with low upfront costs. However, a common mistake made by marketers when expanding to a new country is that they only translate ad text without taking into consideration all of the additional complexities involved. An international campaign is not simply an extension of […]
What’s happening with all those inactive and deleted usernames that Twitter has? Some of them will continue to be held back for a few more weeks; some likely for much longer, Twitter cofounder Ev Williams said yesterday. I caught Williams between sessions at the Chirp conference yesterday and put to him a question that Les […]
Move over Google, Yahoo, and Bing; blended results or not, personalized search, Twitter results and OneBoxes … you guys are just too predictable for this article. There’s a new breed of search engines out there, and they’re letting users search and find some utterly crazy stuff. And by “crazy,” I mean a lot of things: […]
Google announced three changes today, one for Google Suggestions and the other two for spelling enhancements. In short, Google Suggest now shows search suggestions tailored to U.S. metro areas. Google’s spell checker now works for misspellings of names and now auto-spelling corrections are done in 31 languages. The two examples given for Google Suggest for […]
When I heard yesterday that a volcano in Iceland had erupted and that airports across Europe were closed I thought it was a joke. But unfortunately it wasn’t. The volcano, Eyjafjallajökull (no that’s not misspelled), sent ash out into the sky for miles. The ash apparently creates a dangerous condition for planes, and so most […]
For the second year in a row, Google hired goats to mow their lawn. This is Google’s way of reducing their carbon footprint. The 200 goats, according to Google, cost as much as a lawn service to bring in and would benefit the world by eliminating mower emissions, reducing noise pollution, restoring plant species and […]
In the first part of my interview with John Battelle, we talked about the actual search experience—the act of searching and our expectations of what the results of that act might be. But as we started talking about change, it soon became clear that change in the act of search translates into change throughout the […]
OK, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say something that might not make sense at first: the most important outcome of successful web analytics (or SEO effort or landing page testing, etc.) is not a better web site. The most important outcome is a better, more functional company. Let’s pause from […]
Every day a new SEO myth is born; unfortunately, not every day does an old SEO myth die off. The net result is a growing population of myths. These are nearly impossible to squash because the snake-oil salesmen of our industry keep perpetuating them — bringing them back from the brink, even. You can talk […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google’s First Quarter 2010 Results Show 23% Revenue Increase Google announced earnings, showing a 23% increase in revenue from the first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010. Google […]
Mobile search engines have different bots and algorithms than those used for traditional web search. They evaluate your website as if it was being rendered on a mobile phone, and they rank results partially based on how well the page will render on the type of phone that submitted the query. If you look in […]
Google announced earnings, showing a 23% increase in revenue from the first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010. Google earned $6.77 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2010. Google’s operating income was $2.49 billion, or 37% of revenues and net income was $1.96 billion up from $1.42 billion the year prior. […]
As I’m sure many of you have heard, this is the year of mobile. Well, a year of mobile, if you listened to Steve Ballmer of Microsoft at SMX West last month. Regardless of whether mobile search hits the volume levels that have been suggested, what is clear — is that mobile ads, mobile search, […]
Congratulations! You have completed the Research Phase of your advertiser’s PPC account. You should already have a ton of data on your advertiser’s keyword landscape, including details about your preferred keywords, competitor campaigns, ads and landing pages that are being used in paid search marketing efforts relevant to your category of interest. Now begins the […]
We don’t know yet know if it’s a test or a permanent addition, but at least some webmasters are seeing clickthrough statistics in their Google Webmaster Tools accounts. We assume this is strictly organic clickthrough data. This appears to have been noticed first by Dutch search marketer, Karel Geenen. And I’m seeing it in my […]