March 2006 - Posts
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |
A few weeks ago Google unveiled a started edition of Google Adwords. If you don't have the time (or money) to spend on creating detailed campaigns then the starter edition is a nice segway into the world of Web advertising.
The Starter Edition of AdWords allows an advertiser to set up an account with only one ad, a list of keywords and a monthly budget. While advertisers are not able to run reports (or have any tracking through Google) they will be able to see impressions, clicks and total cost of their keywords.
The reason I like the "starter edition" concept is that it educates people on the PPC process since not every website owner will be willing to drop big cash on something they are unsure of at the start. Another reason I like it is that it enables those without a significant SEO presence (or those without official access to a sites marketing budget) to secure trademarks. Overall, a big thumbs up from WSM.
Google has a detailed comparison between the
Adwords standard and starter accounts in their online help center.
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |
It is always surprising to me all of the different ways you can use audio to your advantage - push advertising, create buzz and simply share, share, share your viewpoint. In fact, according to a recent consumer survey conducted by Bridge Data, the relevance of portability to podcast usage has been vastly overstated. Sure, the ability to push audio message to a broad audience via podcasting is appealing but did you know that most people listen to audio from their desktops? In fact, more 80% of podcast downloads never make it to a portable player or another device - they are consumed on the Web.
Looking to create simple podcast? Look no further than WSM - we've got two great
audio tools for your Website and we'll be adding to them in the future!
Add to: Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |
Our friends at Neverblue Media announced yesterday their official launch of
their new division CoregSolutions. From
the release, "In a continued effort to offer clients a variety of lead
generation solutions, Neverblue Media’s CoregSolutions division will enable
online publishers to generate leads through co-registration advertising
campaigns hosted on their own websites. CoregSolutions will offer access to both
standard and custom/extended co-registration campaigns."
Neverblue Media has been testing and tracking the CoregSoultions co-registration
platform for the past 4 months and is pleased with results. “Neverblue Media has
been involved in lead generation and affiliate marketing for years and we
currently have many partners that engage in co-registration publishing. Building
the CoregSolutions Platform was a logical next step for Neverblue Media” said
Jordan Visco, Neverblue Media’s VP of Affiliate Marketing.
Register and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Add to:
Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |
We're finishing up a few articles for the magazine this week and one of those articles is about using audio as a message platform - podcasting. Here are two great podcasting tools you may just see in our upcoming issue:
:
Your favorite site doesn't provide news feeds? The free
Feed43.com online service converts any web page to an RSS feed on the fly. Certainly worth a look - great tool for web designers to keep check of clients, marketers to keep track of the competition and... well, for any reason at all where it's important to keep informed or keep other people in the know!
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |
You know things are going right when you get a new office, bring on amazing new staffers and post a new address. So here it is (More on the new staff members this afternoon):
Website Services Magazine3952 Avondale
Chicago, IL 60641-2906
Add to: Technorati Digg del.icio.us Yahoo BlinkList Spurl reddit Furl Don't think for a minute that the FTC isn't keen on the CAN-SPAM act. An
Internet marketer will pay a $900,000 fine, the largest ever on spam-related
charges, in a consent decree announced today by the U.S. Federal Trade
Commission. Jumpstart Technologies, based in San Francisco, is permanently
prohibited from unlawful practices related to the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act as part of
the decree, entered in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of
California.
Jumpstart violated provisions of the CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of
Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act by sending commercial e-mail
messages with false or misleading subject and From lines, and by continuing to
sending e-mail messages more than 10 business days after receiving an opt-out
request from consumers, the FTC said. The company also did not clearly identify
messages as advertising or solicitations, and did not clearly inform recipients
that they could opt out of receiving more e-mail messages. Jumpstart also made
it look as if the original consumer had written the message text. In this way,
Jumpstart's commercial e-mail messages circumvented some spam filters and were
opened by consumers who thought they contained personal correspondence, the FTC
said.
Update: According to a new report from Websurveyor Corp. email marketers still show a "shockingly low level" of understanding about the requirements and penalities of the CAN-SPAM law. Of the 1,082 organizations responding, 81% said they are unaware of the CAN-Spam Act and its requirements and only 19% could correctly identify the act as the legislation governing the broadcast of commercial e-mail.
Technorati Tags:
spam, can spam, FTC, jumpstart
You can tell a lot about the potential for success (of people and companies) by knowing about the company they keep.
Via YahooNews from AdWeek:
Marketers on the hunt for ROI are increasingly using the same tools everyone else uses to search for stuff--Google, Yahoo! and MSN. The most formal and high-profile effort so far has been by Pontiac, which in January took the unusual step of tagging its ads with a plea to "Google Pontiac," in part so it could measure the reach of the ads. Mark-Hans Richer, director of marketing for Pontiac, said since the ads ran, the auto brand's search requests are up about 50 percent higher than anyone in the industry.
So what's the lesson learned? Hitch your wagon to a rising (or risen) star for greater marketing success.
Let's Go 2.0 - Bookmark this article!
Technorati - Digg - del.icio.us - Yahoo - BlinkList - Spurl - reddit - Furl
Online payment company PayPal said recently they are preparing to offer a service for consumers to make purchases using mobile phones via text messaging. PayPal, a unit of eBay, Inc., will launch the service in the coming weeks.
Details can be found at the
PayPal site, but here in a nutshell is how it will work:
When released, mobile phone users will send text messages to PayPal with the amount of money the sender wishes to transfer and the recipient's phone number. On the PayPal Web site, the company uses the example: "Send 5 to 4150001234". A PayPal computer then calls back the text message sender on the phone and asks the user to enter a secret PIN to confirm the transaction. PayPal then notifies the recipient and tells it how to claim the payment online.
Via eWeek, "While designed to make online payments more convenient for the nearly 100 million existing PayPal users, the move to offer a mobile payment service holds out the prospect of reaching vast markets in the developing world where phones, rather than computers, are the main way to connect to the Internet."
Website marketing success is in at least one respect based on the ability to
reach your target audience, right? Well, how do you know if your advertising,
marketing or SEO is effectively gaining the attention and response it deserves?
Analytics.
Unfortunately, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of analytics providers -
and we're not talking site counters and server logs here. WSM had the
opportunity to speak with Tina Bean of Visistat today about their service - a
real-time (and I mean real time) analytics solutions. I was most impressed with
their interface, a graphical, immensely intuitive platform for the SMB
community. VisiStat dynamically captures visitor activity, search engine keyword
usage, geographical location, click path, and other important information such
as referrals. Users add a small hidden "snippet" of HTML code to their Webpages
and VisiStat collects information in real-time. The benefit is the increased
opportunity to refine SEO keywords and terms and provide track-able indications
of which engines rank a site and how much traffic you've received for a specific
time frame and for a specific keyword. While the actual rank is not appeared,
Visitstat has wisely include a "perform search" link so that you can see
firsthand where your site places. With its add-on AdCam service, you can also
track the ROI for any promotional platform - PPC, banners, SEO, etc. By knowing
what works and what misses, priorities and dollars can be effectively applied
right away, dramatically improving your return on investment. Of all the
analytics systems I have had the opportunity to review, Visistat makes my top
five.
According to a recent Jupiter Research Report entitled "U.S. Customer Service
& Support Metrics, December 2005," 92% of Web sites offering email as a customer
support option, only 41% acknowledge receipt of customers' messages with
automated email responses.
The research also shows that since 2000, the number of sites meeting a 24 hour
threshold for email response continues to decrease. In fact, only 45% of sites
resolved email inquiries within 24 hours. The most significant trend, however,
is that 39% of sites took three days or longer to reply or did not respond at
all. The number of these sites has grown 7% year over year from 2000 to 2005.
"Our research highlights a continued struggle among companies to master the
email touch point," said Zachary McGeary, Associate Analyst at JupiterResearch
and author of the report. "This growing segment of unresponsive companies is
damaging customer loyalty and retention. These companies must either invest in
appropriate technology or deprioritize email as a service touch point," added
McGeary.
Register and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Technorati Tags:
email, crm, customer support
Del.icio.us Tags:
email, crm, customer support
It does not work and it never has. Adware - the scourge of the Web was dealt a substantial blow as one of its major proponents packed up and left town. Claria, originally called Gator, announced Tuesday that by June it would leave the much maligned adware business and focus on new personalization services.
PersonalWeb, which generates ``personalized Web portals'' on the fly, enables a user who just visisted a site for sports scores and movie times to get a personal page pulling top items from ESPN and Moviefone.
Claria was a pioneer of behavior based advertising (served through pop-ups) and generated close to $150 million from 1999 to 2003.
Register and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Technorati Tags:
claria, personalweb, adware, gator
Del.icio.us Tags:
claria, personalweb, adware, gator
The Customer Dissatisfaction Study released today by the Verde Group and Baker Retailing Initiative at Wharton finds that as shopping problems get repeated, they often get embellished and actually become up to five times more damaging to customer retention than the initial negative shopping experience itself.
"This study is unlike anything we've seen before because it shows that for every 100 American shoppers, 64 people will be told about a store's poor products or services and no matter what that store does to entice shoppers - sales, promotions, advertising, marketing - those people will not set foot in their store," says Paula Courtney, President, The Verde Group. Nearly one-third of all U.S. retail customers who have a bad shopping experience will tell four people in such a way that those four people will be more negatively impacted than the person who initially had the problem.
More than 50 per cent of Americans report that a negative shopping experience of a friend or colleague will prevent them from setting foot in a store altogether. Learn more about the
Jay H. Baker Retailing Initiative.
Register and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Technorati Tags:
ecommerce, online shopping, retailing
Del.icio.us Tags:
ecommerce, online shopping, retailing
There's simply no replacement for the human voice.
So how are companies connecting with
prospects and customers these days? Well, if it was up to Dallas-based
PrivateTel, it would be via a "Click-and-Connect".
I had the opportunity to speak with Dan Kaluszny of PrivateTel this afternoon.
From the website: "Integrating website access with telephony, Click-and-Connect's technology
facilitates complete connectivity--resulting in better sales, service and
convenience for an online business. In fact, when customers interact with live
customer service, website abandonment decreases by 50% and closure rates exceed
90% (source: Forrester Research, May 2005)."
PrivateTel Solutions is an alternative to existing support options such as chat
or instant messaging in that it enables users to maintain the context of what
they are doing. It's usage based pricing and ease of implementation are just two
of the reasons to take a closer look. I've tested it out this afternoon and it's pretty interesting
technology.
More on PrivateTel's Click and Connect in our upcoming issue.
Register and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Technorati Tags:
CRM tools, e-commerce, communications
Del.icio.us Tags:
CRM tools, e-commerce, communications
|
CSS Tweak is a web based CSS optimization tool. It will
take any CSS file and optimize the syntax, grouping your style
declarations into shorthand where possible. It can also remove comments,
and strip whitespace for maximum compression.
The one thing that makes it different from other tools however, is
you can also stop it from altering your syntactical layout at all.
Instead it will go through and stick with the layout you have defined,
and clean up any areas that are incorrectly formatted.
|
Check out CSSDev.com's
cssTweak
|
Register and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Technorati Tags:
css, design, web design, programming
Del.icio.us Tags:
css, design, web design, programming
In the world of traditional media, there are established outlets (billion dollar
industries in fact) which help you audit the various communication formats
you've invested in advertising your product through. For
example, the Audit Bureau of Circulations
for print, Arbitron for radio
ratings, and
Nielsen for TV research.
When it comes to auditing online media there are considerably more challenges.
When it comes to discovery and planning regarding where marketers and online
media buyers put their online dollars, where are you going to go? Purchasing ad space from small, niche
websites is akin to gambling - the odds are not in your favor; and you don't
know really what you're going to get in return.
| Unless you have a sizable budget and can employ an ad network to do your media
buying on a bulk level for you, most website owners don't really have a lot of
options - or do they? The challenge is not in finding companies which fit within
an enterprises marketing objectives (and within your budget) but also monitoring
the status of sites to ensure they are producing the traffic or exposure to your
site or brand respectively. Here are two great sites we use frequently to monitor the popularity of sites
and on which we make media buy recommendations:
|
|
Register and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Technorati Tags:
ranking, alexa, media, auditing, internet
Del.icio.us Tags:
ranking, alexa, media, auditing, internet
Almost every site serious about search engine positioning includes meta-tags
into the head section of their site. There is much more to interacting with
search engines however than just including a title, keywords and description
tags for the pages that Web surfers are visiting- you also should provide
supporting documentation about the Web page. This is done through the http-equiv
tag.
The HTTP-EQUIV attribute can be used in place of the NAME attribute and has a
special significance when documents are retrieved via the Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP). META tags with an HTTP-EQUIV attribute are bound to HTTP
headers. Typically, they control the action of browsers, and may be used to
refine the information provided by the actual headers.
For example, take a look at the index page of
WebsiteServices.com. You will see
the http-equiv attribute included as follows:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=utf-8" />
The http-equiv tag can also be used to express when content expires, to set the
client side scripting language forinline scripts to Javascript, to set the style
language for inline styles to CSS or set character encodeing.:
Expiration - <meta http-equiv="Expires" content="Monday,
21 Mar 2006, 12:00:00 GMT -6">
Javascript - <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Script-Type" CONTENT="text/javascript">
Style Lang. - <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Style-Type" CONTENT="text/css">
One of the most common uses of the equiv attribute is for refreshing a page or
redirecting a visitor to another page. The <META http-equiv refresh> is very
useful when you need to move or rename a page on your site. Since search engines
may already have your page in their index, it is wise to include a redirect page
to not lose those visitors. Some SEO experts argue that it is better to set up a
permanent redirect on your site but if you are in a hurry, this is a quick and
easy way to get it done (just include it in the head section of your HTML):
<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh"
content="1;URL=http://www.websitemagazine.com">
Let's Go 2.0!
Bookmark or submit to:
Technorati Tags:
http, html, seo
It's not just for the visually impaired.
There is more to website accessibility than just catering to the
obvious needs of the visually impaired. As the Web is largely visual in nature,
blind or partially sighted users can use screen reader software that can convert
text to speech, but what about those that surf the 'Net with images turned off?
How do they see your site? Adhering to practical accessibility standards is
smart as it provides benefits to both sighted and visually impaired users. A
lack of accessibility standards caused by poor web page design and (think
frames, nested tables, no image or link descriptions, etc.) prevents those
using automated screen reading software to incorrectly interpret content, and in
turn, the message you want to convey. For those surfing the web with images
turned off or through text only browsers such as Lynx, providing accessible code
of this type provides a richer user experience.
As such, below are some tips to help in
creating accessible code:
Use Alt tags appropriately: Alt tags are html tags which provide
alternate text to an image. Frequently misused, placing the alt attribute within
the IMG tag will be read aloud by screen reader software and available to
sighted users when they mouse-over an image. For users that have turned off
graphics in their browsers, the ALT text will display instead of an image.
The LONGDESC attribute: A common misconception when it comes to
Web accessibility is that alt tags can be used for providing extensive descriptions
of images. when in actuality, the longdesc tag is best suited to
this requirement. The "longdesc" should be the URL of the page where a longer
description of an image can be found - also accessible via a "d" link.
The "d" link: Including a "d" link beside images that
require extensive description (i.e. multimedia objects, video, animation)
provides screen readers and their visually impaired users a link to a more
detailed description on an alternate page. While not part of any standard, it is
a recommendation of many Accessibility Advocacy Groups. The "d" link is intended
to mirror the functionality of the LONGDESC attribute for non-visual browsers,
and is a nice backwards compatibility feature.
Register and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services MagazineTechnorati Tags:
accessibility, accessibility assessments, web accessibility
Del.icio.us Tags:
accessibility, accessibility assessments, web accessibility
ICANN, the Internet's key oversight agency, will soon start testing domain names
entirely in non-English characters, a change highly sought by Arabic and Asian
Internet users. Test are scheduled to begin in the second-half of 2006 and
will ensure that introducing such characters won't create havoc in the current
global addressing system. Currently, the Internet's main traffic directories
know only 37 characters; the 26 letters of the Latin script used in English, the
10 numerals and a hyphen.
Register and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services MagazineTechnorati Tags:
ICANN, domains, domain name
Del.icio.us Tags:
ICANN, domains, domain name
Welcome to the flat world. If you look closely at your web statistics you may
find that a segment of your traffic originates from outside the country you
operate your website from. In an increasingly flat (globally interconnected)
world you may want to consider translating your web pages (or at least providing
the opportunity to translate online content) and help those 'Net visitors access
your content. As most global companies provide translations features so readers
can review content in their native language, a vast majority do not.
The main problem with using an automatic translation services such as Google
Translate or Babelfish is that they only translate words and not the meanings
(or the nuances) of a language. Essentially, translation has a long way to go,
but you as a website owner, marketer or developer can help refine users
experience and provide alternative options - you may even find some new Korean,
Portuguese, French or German web log readers if you're lucky.
Register and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Technorati:
translation, web translation, multilingual translation
Del.icio.us:
translation, web translation, multilingual translation
The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Lead Generation committee announced it has
proposed Online Lead Generation Best Practices for the interactive industry for
comment. The IAB
guidelines are intended to assist ad agencies, marketers, online publishers
and technology vendors and address issues facing the emerging interactive
communications channel. While a majority of the the guidelines were related to
consumer transparency and data integrity, most ethical lead generating companies
could abide by them by adhering to a formal privacy policy.
So, I have a few comments about two of the proposed guidelines:
1) "All lead generation efforts need to be strictly permission-based;
consumers cannot be coerced or otherwise unknowingly misled to accept an
advertiser’s offer."
One of the major problems with co-registration is that advertisers are often
bundled with other program participants and publishers of co-reg request often
initiate a lead by pre-checking forms. Since most users go right ahead and
submit without putting too much thought into what they are actually registering
for, this inevitably ends in poor leads for advertisers and disgruntled users
(who end up being bombarded with what they view as unsolicited email). I believe
the IAB should come out publicly against auto-checking schemes as its damaging
to brands, ad lead generation buyers and consumers. They also should consider
setting a limit on the number of offers presented.
2) "Advertisers/Publishers/Vendors must only send consumer offers or
information that strictly adheres to the offers and information they have
requested. For instance, if a consumer asks for mortgage information, that
consumer receives only mortgage information."
I have some issues with this guideline. What immediately popped into my head was
"one man's trash is another man's treasure". Obviously if a consumer asks for
mortgage information they are interested in a mortgage but could they not also
be interested in home insurance? Are they not interested in lawnmowers? Well,
not if you own a condominium but I hope you see what I mean. Offers are relevant
not only in subject but also in timing. while you may not need something now,
you may need (or want) something in the future. I read a trade mag which sells
lead lists by CPM and there are several lists which mention "new home buyers" -
a growing audience in the past few years. So do these home owners want to
receive mailers from local merchants? Why not, I personally don't have a problem
with it. While they are not immediately associated with my request for mortgage
information, the proper segmentation can go a long way towards appropriateness.
There are a few more guidelines all marketers and site owners should look at.
Again, you can find the best practices overview for lead generation at the
IAB.
Register and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services MagazineTechnorati Tags:
lead generation, IAB, advertising
Del.icio.us Tags:
lead generation, IAB, advertising
The local paid-search market is expected to reach nearly $1 billion ($987
million) this year, up from $420 million in 2005, and continue to grow rapidly
to 1.7 billion in 2007 and reach $4 billion in 2010, when it will account for 47
percent of local online advertising, according to a Borrell Associates report, "2006 Local Search Advertising."
From the report: "Local advertisers have gone beyond experimenting.
Eighteen months ago they occupied 5.6 percent of sponsored links on the major
search engines; today it’s more than one-third. For some categories like real
estate, local agents are buying half the sponsored links."
However, local advertisers are expected to decrease spending on online display ads and listings by 2010, with spending peaking at $5.7 billion in 2008 and coming back down to $4.5 billion in 2010 - nearer to the 2005 level of $4 billion.
Register and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services MagazineTechnorati Tags:
local search, paid search
Del.icio.us Tags:
local search, paid search
An
ExactTarget Response Rate study reveals that the bigger the email list, the lower the open and click through rate. Data was collected during the 2005 calendar year from more than 4,000 organizations, 230,000 email campaigns and 2.7 billion email messages.
Lists with 100,000 or more names had an average open rate of 18.2 percent and click-though of 3.6 percent. Those with 101-1,000 names had an open rate of 42.1 percent and click-through rate of 6.8 percent. For lists of 1,001-10,000, the rates were 33.2 percent and 5.1 percent; for 10,001-100,000, the rates were 25.8 percent and 4.5 percent. ExactTarget reports that open rates stabilize at a 15-20 percent range when list size reaches 400,000-500,000; however, the downward trend in click-through rates is unpredictable and shows greater variation.
“This phenomenon is one of the strongest cases for audience segmentation,” according to Morgan Stewart, director of strategic services at ExactTarget and author of the study. “The smaller the targeted audience, the better organizations can aim their message directly to their subscribers in their email communications. This is a sure way to increase response to email communications.”
Register
and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Technorati Tags:
email, exacttarget, deliverabilityDel.icio.us Tags:
email, exacttarget, deliverability
The Web Marketing Association has released a landmark study entitled
"Internet Standards Assessment Report" which benchmarks outstanding Web
development in 81 industries over the past decade.
ISAR provides industry benchmarks for Web site development and is based on
data collected from 9,748 Web site evaluations since 1997. The report evaluates
average scores in more than 80 industries to create defined benchmarks in seven
categories, including design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity,
copywriting and ease of use.
Request the
ISAR report.
Website Services Magazine is a proud sponsor of the Web Marketing
Associations WebAward.
Technorati Tags:
ISAR report, web marketing association, web award
Del.icio.us Tags:
ISAR report, web marketing association, web award
Take a look at your email list and chances are good that a majority are through Web-based accounts. According to survey results from Lyris Technologies, 26% percent of American Internet users route opt0in e-mail to Yahoo!, 21 percent read marketing communications through Hotmail, and 13 percent use AOL. Only eight percent of those Internet users surveyed use work addresses to receive marketing messages.
"What's most interesting about these results is that fewer American consumers are using work email accounts as the delivery vehicle for opt-in commercial emails. This trend could be driven by factors such as rapid adoption of high-speed internet access at home and increasing consumer comfort in managing multiple email accounts, each serving a different purpose," said David Dabbah, Director of Sales and Marketing, of Lyris.
The poll also indicated that 30 percent of American internet users have only one email account, 37 percent have two email accounts, 19 percent have three email accounts, and 13 percent have
four or more email accounts.
Register
and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Technorati Tags:
email, email delivery, lyris
Del.icio.us Tags:
email, email delivery, lyris
No, it's not a code word for entrance into the Googleplex, it's a style of writing initially used in press release writing which of late has generated some attention in the blogosphere.
Writing in the inverted pyramid style simply means placing the most important information at the very top of the content. Say for example that you are writing an article on hosting. You would want in one or two sentences to express why what you are writing is important to the reader - maybe that the readers can save money by using a web hosting reseller or that using a virtual host provides a certain set of advantages. The remainder of the article (or press release) would be used to explain the why of your initial statement (the raison d'etre if you will).
I'm not so sure that the inverted pyramid style of writing should be used by bloggers and here's why. Writing for the blogs is an art, whereas inverted pyramid writing is more of a necessary science. In days gone by, if you did not place the most important information at the very top or waited until the end of the release to share the key details, chances were good that your release would be cut off leaving vital information on the cutting room floor.
So what is the best practice for blog writing? There are no hard and fast rules, that is for sure. A clear point is important, well thought out reasoning and appropriate grammar and spelling can go a long way though.
Register
and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Technorati Tags:
pr, inverted pyramid, blog writing
Del.icio.us Tags:
pr, inverted pyramid, blog writing
A new report from Internet researcher eMarketer (http://www.emarketer.com/Report.aspx?search_marketing_apr06) forecasts that paid search advertising spending, slowing from its meteoric rise the last few years, will still hit $10 billion by 2009.
eMarketer forecasts that US paid search ad spending in the US in 2006 will grow by 26.2%, a full seven percentage points less than last year's 33.2% gain. After triple-figure growth rates earlier in the decade, more modest growth rates will prevail through the rest of the decade.
Register
and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Technorati Tags:
paid search, emarketer, ad spending
Del.icio.us Tags:
paid search, emarketer, ad spending
What happens when you cross massive amounts of traffic with massive amounts of
user data? Well, if you're smart - demographics for advertisers.
In what appears to be a "you can't top us" counter move with the recent release
of Microsoft's AdCenter which offers demographic targeting, Google has released
"demographic site selection" which according to the Google website is "a way to
find and run your ads on sites with the right audience for your AdWords
campaigns."
Define "demographics"?
A demographic group is an audience that shares a particular trait or
characteristic. This trait might be age, gender, income, or some other factor.
If your product appeals to young women, for instance, you might want to target
sites popular with the female demographic, the 18-24 age demographic, or both.
So how does the system work?
From the Adwords Help Center:
"With the AdWords site tool, you can pick your preferences in up to three
different demographic categories. The system will analyze your preferences and
create a list of available Google Network sites that are popular with that
audience. If you select multiple demographics, the AdWords system will look for
sites that match all of your preferences. For instance, you might ask the site
tool to look for sites popular with users who have children, or for sites
popular with men earning a high income. The site tool will then return a list of
sites whose audience tends to match those demographic descriptions."
Where does all this demographic information come from?
AdWords is tapping website data from comScore Media Metriz, a respected
marketing information provider.
If you are an AdWords advertiser, they have a helpful section on how to use the
tool. WSM will do a comparison next week of both MSN's AdCenter and the
demographic site tool from Google so stay tuned!
Register
and share your comments now!
Subscribe today to Website
Services Magazine
Technorati Tags:
Google, demographics, advertising
Del.icio.us Tags:
Google, demographics, advertising
Microsoft is hitting the web services arena full force and (you heard it here first) it's going to lessen Y & G's hold on the 'Net community - website owners included. The MSN AdCenter and its new Windows Live Search Engine (both of which I've tested) are impressive to say the least.
The MSN AdCenter takes the best of both Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing and combines them into an online advertisers dream platform (if they can serve up the traffic). The management console is simple, provides tracking and allows dayparting. But more on the AdCenter in a future post.
Now, about the Windows Live Search Engine which was officially released in Beta today. The "smart" part of the product is its ability to work in tandem with the Windows operating system and Office business software. Essentially, the product will continue to be tested but will eventually replace the search functionality that powers MSN.com.
Here are some of the features of the new Windows Live Search engine:
- Tabbed Web browsing
(possibly ala Mozilla)
- A "Search Slider" bar that offers previews of data in various forms
- Smart scroll which features, get this, ALL search results on one page instead of multiple pages.
- "Save Search" feature
There were some problems just now when I tried to access the site which reveals (like most things in life) that execution is of paramount importance.
Technorati Tags:
microsoft, windows live search
Del.icio.us Tags:
microsoft, windows live search