More from Search Engine Land: Page 2

Link building

Do Social Media Links Translate In Organic Rankings?

Most clients I work with understand the importance of link building and the effect it has on organic rankings and traffic. However, many clients, for a variety of reasons, aren’t willing to consider social media as link building tactic. They feel that it’s not worth the time investment, and the quantity and quality of links […]

Analytics & conversion

Segmenting Search Respondents With 2-Step Landing Pages

My earlier article, A Completely Different Kind of Landing Page Optimization, discussed the rationale for delivering segment-specific landing pages to different niche audiences in your search marketing. Instead of having a one-size-fits-all landing page that you try to continually optimize ad nauseum with different variations of content (headline, body copy, image), segment optimization focuses on […]

Google Analytics

A Small Business Year-End Marketing Checklist

2009 is almost here, and I hope small business owners have already been thinking long and hard about their plan of attack for the new year. Those who have are ahead of the game. If you haven’t given the new year much thought, start now. Successful online marketing is about developing the right combination of […]

Google

Matt Cutts Of Google Talks About 2009 With SEM Synergy

Virginia Nussey of BruceClay.com has interviewed Matt Cutts of Google. The interview asks Matt several questions, including what to expect in 2009 from Google in terms of search, cloud computing and the role of an SEO. Oh, and of course, Matt talks about spam, saying international spam has a long way to go at Google […]

Content

Online Video Tactics For Small Businesses

Online video has been explored as marketing tool by large companies, and as a buzz-builder for content producers of all sizes. But what about small businesses: can they jump into the fray and get noticed by video audiences? The short answer is yes. Let’s look at some formats and how they can fit into your […]

LinkedIn

Jeff Weiner (Ex-Yahoo) Lands At LinkedIn

TechCrunch is reporting that former Yahoo Network chief Jeff Weiner is taking on the role of interim President at LinkedIn. Weiner left Yahoo this summer and took an executive role at venture capital firms Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. He was one of Yahoo’s top executives, overseeing all of the company’s consumer-facing products. Just last […]

Apple

Ask.com Plays The Google AdWords Arbitrage Game

Ah, Ask.com. Since I wrote their obituary in March, not much has got me thinking they’ll make a comeback. Sure, there was the gimmick of kind of bringing back Jeeves himself. But the spate of “hotels.ask.com” ads I see them running on Google makes me think they’re dropping further from being a search engine and […]

Content

Best Of B2B Search Marketing 2009

Articles and blog postings on B2B search marketing are often hard to find. At Search Engine Land, we’re fortunate to have a stable of experts who regularly contribute great content and make the Strictly Business column a success. But during the year, I’ve found a lot of other great content, too. I chose 30 of […]

PPC

Yahoo One-Ups Google With 90 Day Data Retention Policy

Yahoo has announced they will be anonymizing their user log data to 90 days, compared to Google’s policy of 9 months. The data policy is not just inclusive of their search data but also their page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks. Yahoo does reserve the right to retain data longer than 90 […]

SEO

SearchBiz: Microsoft Search General Manager Brad Goldberg Leaving, Twitter Gets Serious About Revenue & Google Gives Good License

Microsoft’s GM of search product management (on the marketing side), Brad Goldberg, is leaving the company to become CEO of online business at investment firm Peak6. This doesn’t impact the technical side of search at Microsoft, which just hired former Yahoo search exec Qi Lu to head up its overall online business unit. There’s also […]

PPC

Building Your Brand With Search: A Three Part Strategy

If you’re like most marketers, you spend a lot of time and resources creating and promoting your brand through offline channels such as television, radio, and newspapers. Clearly, it’s something worth protecting. But what if you could improve your branding investment and make it even more worthwhile, reinforcing your offline branding efforts through search? Many […]

SEO

Link Smart Or Die In 2009

The recession is more than just news fodder these days, it’s a reality many of us as service providers are feeling. At Alliance-Link we’re watching our clients cut back their on and offline advertising expenditures which makes it difficult for us to build custom linking programs. All of our programs use offline elements to drive […]

SEO

Making Your Search Campaigns Work Harder During The Economic Downturn

Even in this challenging economy, paid search will continue to be one of the best-performing marketing methods out there. Search marketing has weathered economic storms of the past. In fact, Google and the entire industry was born out of necessity, during the dot-com bust. When times are tough, marketing needs to work hard and prove […]

Advertising

Small Businesses Struggle With Search Marketing

Microsoft just released results of a survey of 400 small businesses (SMBs) that shows they continue to struggle with search marketing (how to think about it, how to do it). This is consistent with what I and others have observed about the majority of SMBs, even those with websites.

Google

Google’s Countdown To 2009 Promotes Products & Services

Did you know Google has a countdown to 2009 calendar? It is available at google.com/countdownto2009/ and it basically is a dressed up calendar with ways to use Google for the holidays. Each day of the calendar has a new Google tip for the holidays. There is also a mobile version and it can be added […]

Core update

AdWords Landing Page Quality Refresher

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” This gem from heavyweight boxing legend Iron Mike Tyson also applies to AdWords account strategy, especially when starting a new account. Beginning in 2006, some advertisers in the affiliate marketing, Made-for-AdSense, and other spheres have referred to harsh quality score treatment — especially treatment […]

Google News

Newsknife Announces Top News Sites Of 2008

Newsknife, a site that every month rates the world’s top news sites for quality to help news sites improve their performance at Google News, has released its annual list of the most important news sites on Google news for the year. Rankings are compiled by the frequency of stories being included in Google news by […]

SEO

Mahalo Answers Launches, Offers Cash For Q&A

Mahalo Answers is the newest entry into the crowded Q&A reference site space, but it offers a twist that its biggest competitors don’t: the chance to earn money by contributing to the service. Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis says the new service is the third and final piece of his original vision for Mahalo, making it […]

SEO

Announcing Our Newest Conference: SMX Search Analytics

Search marketing isn’t just about website optimization and paid search campaigns. To really know if your efforts are paying off, you need to test, measure and refine on an ongoing basis. Analytics tools are key to these processes, providing you with invaluable information about your visitors, customers and even those that “got away.” Our newest […]

Apple

SearchBiz: Google “Less Trusted,” Eric Schmidt On Meet The Press, Yahooligans “Vote” For New CEO, Microsoft Releases First iPhone App, Mobile To Be Primary Internet By 2020

The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that Google is negotiating with ISPs for “a fast lane for its own content” and is backing away from net neutrality. However, Google vigorously disputes this characterization and explains that instead it is seeking to “‘colocate” caching servers within broadband providers’ own facilities,” which has the practical effect […]

Google Ads

Google AdWords Gets Ready For Holidays With Special Dividers

Every year, Google dresses up the dividers between the organic search results and the paid search results with special holiday icons. This year is no different. David notified me that the special holiday dividers are now up. Every year, they do change up the icons they use, to give it an updated feel. Below, I […]

Google

Google Search Suggest Get Ads, Links & Answers

Earlier this year, Google Suggest finally made it to the Google home page. The feature suggests queries as you begin typing in the search box. Now Google is testing providing links to web sites, direct answers and even ads that appear within the Google Suggest list.

Content

Who Owns The Search Page?

We have a recurring argument with clients. See if this sounds familiar: Us: You have no search visibility for “keyword” Client: We don’t want visibility for “keyword” Us: Why? Client: Because that’s not us. We don’t use “keyword” to describe ourselves. That’s not what we’re about. Us: Yes, but that’s what the searcher is looking […]

Bing

Live Search Testing New Crawler; MSNBot/2.0b

The Live Search Blog announced they are letting a new robot loose. The new search engine crawler is named msnbot/2.0b and will be added to the army of current MSN spiders, currently named msnbot/1.1. The new spider is currently being tested but will ultimately replace the old spider. The new spider will respect the current […]

Google

Google Improves APIs For Webmaster Tools & AdWords

Google announced they have or will be improving the API controls for both Webmaster Tools and AdWords. API access gives developers a way to communicate with Google through a structured coding format, in short, it can help automate functions that are done through the standard Google interfaces.

Google

Indian Government Wants Google Earth Censored

On the heels of the tragic terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month, legal advocates in India are asking the country’s High Court to demand that Google blur sensitive locations on Google Earth. The Times reports that the Indian petition says Google Earth “aids terrorists in plotting attacks” and offers “absolutely no control to prevent misuse […]

Google Ads

Google Expands AdSense For Domains – Enough Already

The Google AdSense Blog announced they have begun rolling out the AdSense for Domain product to US based publishers and will continue to roll this feature out to all publishers in the future. AdSense for Domains allows publishers to place ads on domains that have not yet been developed yet, also known as parked domains. […]

Google

Chrome Comes Out of Beta with 10 Million Users

As was reported yesterday, Google’s browser Chrome is coming out of beta — a mere 100 days after it was introduced. When I commented to Sundar Pichai, Product VP, that this had to be one of the fastest exits from beta for Google in recent memory he explained that “Google has a very traditional approach […]

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