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How to manage your pay per click campaigns to help you avoid common PPC mistakes and Google Ad Words Gaffs! (AKA Top of the PPC flops!)

posted on May 29, 2008

By Ann Stanley

PPC mistakes – why we make them!

Pay per click is becoming more sophisticated and complicated. The PPC search engines are bringing out new tools and features to help you manage your PPC campaign or target particularly customers. This new PPC functionality is great for the experienced Google Ad Words Professional (GAP) – yet every day more companies are opening their first pay per click account – with little or no experience.

As a Google Ad Words Professional, a PPC practitioner and an internet marketing consultant; I am amazed how often I come across companies that have no basic online advertising knowledge and consequently make the most fundamental PPC mistakes. This article will attempt to identify the most common errors made when using pay per click advertising; but it will also explain how to manage your PPC account to avoid them!

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7 Easy Ways to Make a Blog Unique, SEO friendly, and Work for You

posted on May 29, 2008

By Kelly C. Jones

If you know anything about SEO you know that blogs are inherently SEO friendly. They have a lateral navigation that is conducive to indexing, they include keyword tags, they frequently have inbound and outbound links, they have subscription and syndication capabilities and it is a way to update content to your site continually without having to have much technical knowledge.

The hang up with blogs is that sometimes they aren’t right for every business. If you’re blogging for business, the goals for your blog should be defined before you invest too many resources blindly. For SEO purposes, and getting noticed, blogs can help increase traffic to your site. Many times owners are too busy running their business to put the effort into search engine optimization and an online presence with authority. That is why as an SEO consultant it’s your job to get creative. You must step outside the blog box in order to generated excitement from the client about making the commitment to continually invest time into updating their site. So I present to you 7 ideas that are non-blogs, but take advantage of all the blogging benefits.

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Pilgrim’s Picks for May 29

posted on May 29, 2008

Don’t forget to check your RSS reader at 2pm ET today. That’s when the next batch of awesome SEM Scholarship entries are published.

You’ll have a lot to read today so I’ll spare you some time by sharing these items as Picks. ;-)

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Glam’s $1.3B Valuation Explains Why Start-Ups Chase the “Build Now, Add Revenue Later” Model

posted on May 29, 2008

On Tuesday, I explained why chasing the "free" start-up model was killing many business ideas. How can you build a company when your business model consists of "get acquired, before we run out of funding?"

Today, we see exactly why the "get acquired" model is so attractive to start-ups. According to VentureBeat, Glam, an online publisher aimed at women, turned down an acquisition offer worth, wait for it, $1.3 billion!

I heard today that Glam received an acquisition offer of $1.3 billion in the past few days, but is unlikely to take the offer, according a source close to the company. Glam’s investors are unlikely to do so because they see a bigger opportunity for Glam to build a large business for high-end display advertising, the source said.

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comScore Buys M:Metrics; Now Will You Believe It’s the “Leader?”

posted on May 29, 2008

Despite the recent bumps in the road, comScore still claims to be the leader in online measurement. In fact, with the announced $44.3 million acquisition of mobile research firm M:Metrics, comScore really thinks it’s the leader.

comScore, Inc. a leader in measuring the digital world, today announced the acquisition of M:Metrics, Inc., the recognized leader in mobile measurement. The acquisition makes comScore the immediate leader in measuring the emerging and strategically important mobile Internet market and adds to comScore’s leading position in measuring PC-based Internet usage.

comScore actually uses "leader" eight times in its press release, so who says you can’t create the perception of your brand by using blunt repetition?

Teasing aside, this is a good acquisition for the company, especially with all the hype surrounding the iPhone and Google’s (now on display) Android.

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More Best Practices Talk, This Time from the IAB

posted on May 28, 2008

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) recently set their “Interactive Campaign Setup Best Practices,” out on the world.

For those of you not familiar with the IAB, their site’s about page defines them as:

Founded in 1996, the Interactive Advertising Bureau represents over 375 leading interactive companies that actively engage in and support the sale of interactive advertising. IAB members are responsible for selling over 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the continuing growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices, fields interactive effectiveness research, and educates marketers, agencies, and media companies, as well as the wider business community, about the value of interactive advertising.

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Is DMCA Outdated?

posted on May 28, 2008

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was signed into law 28 October 1998. Or, as Business Week put it today, a time when “user participation was largely confined to AOL chat rooms and peer-to-peer services.” The Business Week opinion piece states that “The DMCA needs an upgrade,” a sentiment that many on the Internet would agree with—but probably not in the way that BW intended.

The general sentiment about copyright on the Internet is probably most accurately described in this comment to the article: