Marketing Pilgrim

Since we placed all of Marketing Pilgrim’s ad slots on sale, we’ve had an influx of interest. There’s a good chance that we’ll sell out our inventory very soon, so drop me an email if you’re interested.

One last thing, we’ve now added new RSS only ads. There are just ten RSS ad slots, so if you want to see your ad in rotation at the bottom of our RSS feed, get in quick; they’re just $150 per month.

You heard the man! We have a limited capacity for posts—and I’m sure you’re all busy reading the fabulous entries in this year’s SEM Scholarship contest, so I’ll follow Andy’s suit and summarize the good stuff:

• It’s been exactly one month since they promised it, and here it (almost) is: FeedBurner/Google’s AdSense for feeds, due Monday.
• We all get to hear a lot of whining and complaining about advertising on social networking sites. But some studies suggest that social networking ads might actually work. Who knew?

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A study by Borrell Associates found that almost all newspaper web sites are profitable - thanks to online advertising. Advertising revenue accounts for over half of revenues locally, and 57.3 percent, goes to online advertising like Google.

They studied 3,100 sites owned by newspapers, radio stations, TV stations and independents to find out where they are making the most ad revenues.

According to Borrell, there are some important “firsts” in the newspaper industry. For the first time, newspaper online local ads topped more than $2 billion. Also, web sites of the biggest newspapers have switched from print or radio ad revenue to more than half of their revenues coming from non-print advertisers.

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Thanks to everyone that entered the 3rd Annual SEM Scholarship Contest. We had an amazing 31 qualifying entries and the quality of advice was exceptionally high!

I know it can be hard to keep track of all the entries, so here’s the full list:

• The State of the SEO Industry AddressFrom Geek to Chic - The Soap Opera of the Internet
• Link Juice: How to make people link to your website
• Excuse me, may I have my cheap clicks back?
• SEO for Homecoming Queen
• Top 12 Ways to Blow Your Chance of Making Digg’s Front Page

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By Gyutae Park

If you’re a baseball junkie, you know that a triple play is nearly impossible to turn in a game. It requires perfect conditions (at least two runners already on base and no outs), super quick reflexes from the fielders, and a little bit of luck. In fact, the unassisted triple play has only been executed 14 times in the history of Major League Baseball (from 1876-2007).

Now before you hit the back button, confused that Marketing Pilgrim has somehow transformed into ESPN, let me explain how this is relevant to search engine marketing.

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By Lamees Abourahma

Web content has evolved from plain old text to more sassy content including video, sound and Flash. This new engaging content is more likely to attract visitors and capture their attention for a longer time (thus increasing Site Traffic and lowering Bounce Rate).

Bruce Clay, in a recent episode of SEM Synergy on Webmasterradio.fm titled “Changing definition of content” said: “…the definition (of Web content) has expanded. Content can be video, MP3 or images, even feeds or news or blogs… the search engines have to figure out how to decipher that and measure engagement… new sites have a lot of Flash files and images… we’re actually finding that this actually makes a difference. If the web has more pictures, that’s how you get more visitors.” The problem is, most search engines still can’t decipher Flash files or index Flash sites (i.e., sites designed entirely using Adobe Flash).

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By Mark R. Hinkle

The reason people publish content on the web varies: to promote a product, their company, or themselves as an expert. If you are looking for a shortcut to fame and fortune stop reading. Publishing and promoting your content should be looked at as a process with a distinct goal in mind. Gimmicks and other tricks are short-sighted unless you want to be the next Tommy Tutone or Devo it’s worth your time to come up for a complete content and promotion strategy.

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By Ben Fremer

This is my third marketing pilgrim search marketing scholarship entry. Previous small-business related Marketing Pilgrim Search Marketing Scholarship articles we have submitted in the prior two competitions include Dominating the long tail of local search with databases & The Ultimate Internet Marketing Article (overview of search marketing for small businesses. We have done dozens of SEO and link building campaigns for small businesses, and that is where these insights come from ( this isn’t just theorizing or speculation ).

Introduction to typical small business Link Building needs, and how they differ from other businesses

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By Mike Morabito

Did you see it? I feel like I was there when it happened.

As we begin watching the YouTube video Kobe Bryant (the best basketball player in the game) puts on his shoes and against advice of his friend standing near by he gets into position to jump over a moving Aston Martin car that is speeding in his direction.

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By Paul Steinbrueck

At a small college a group of incoming freshmen marketing majors gathered for their first class. As the wise, old Professor of Search Engine Marketing made his way to the front of the room, one of the students asked him, “Professor, what is SEO?”

The professor looked over the classroom full of young students and replied, “Let me tell you a story…”

There once were 5 families that lived in a rural valley where the soil was rich, the weather was harsh, and the best apples in the whole world grew wild.

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By Kristoff Doneit

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By Asif Anwar

When people realized the potential of email marketing, they thought that this is the future of internet marketing. Then came in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) with more liberal approach. As the social media evolved with Web 2.0, we are steadily seeing the shift of visitors from popular internet services like search engines and free email services to the newborn Online Social Media. We are seeing that the present of Internet Marketing is changing rapidly. So, why not the future?

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