• Do Political Search Results Tell The Future?
    Search engine have been known to predict everything from winners of the Academy Awards to the presidency. Now it seems Google could be predicting a failed presidential race for Mitt Romney. While Google returns the normal set of 50 million query results along with the question "Romney can win," it also returns the question "Did you mean Romney can't win?" Peter Fulham tells us that after several searches, it appears Romney remains the only presidential candidate for who the Google glitch applies. 
  • In The Spirit Of Halloween
    Google and Bing celebrate Halloween with a time-lapse video. Both are found on their respecitive home search page. Google's video features Googlers carving six giant pumpkins to spell out the search giant's name. Bing's video highlights a spooky scene when serves up on FireFox or Internet Explorer. Chloe Albanesius points to a post on the History Channel site that tells us U.S. growers produce 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins each year, more than twice the weight of the Empire State Building. Happy Halloween. 
  • Optimizing The Long Tail
    Rand Fishkin explains how long of a tail marketers should optimize. He answers questions such as how big the opportunity and shows marketers ways to measure it. Google exec often talk about the 20% of daily unique searches, which means one in five queries each day are unique. So how should a marketer optimize that type of query? Fishkin provides some insights on optimizing the long tail to convert. 
  • When Online Advertising Hits Data Limits
    Can companies "overly" rely on data-driven strategies? Not all marketers know what to do with data and can use to the data to overwhelm, rather than inform. Hiten Shah tells marketers why it's important to avoid micro-optimizing Facebook campaigns, and describes ways to use data to inform, and set levels of sucess based on metrics. Shah also highlights a video with advice from Facebook product designer Adam Mosseri. 
  • Figuring Out Where Mobile Fits
    Steve Beatty runs thorugh some wireless and cellular numbers from a variety of sources, such as the U.S. Census Bureau and comScore, helping marketers determine where mobile data fits in the strategy. He provides seven steps in detail on how to view and implement mobile campaigns in an overall search marketing strategy. For each point, Beatty provides a summary and important mobile stat to go along with the process. 
  • Creating A Spreadsheet To Organize, Sort Keywords
    Since there's more to keyword research than researching keywords, Stoney deGeyter shows us how to create a spreadsheet to organize keywords. Providing a link to the spreadsheet he created, deGeyter tells us that organizing the words will help marketers with on-page optimization. He outlines the steps to import keywords into the spreadsheet, merging duplicate phrases and data, eliminating negative and junk words, and categorizing into shopping funnels. The detailed post also provides lots of screen shots to visualize the steps. 
  • Google Bid-Per-Call Best Practices
    Kevin Lee takes a close look at Google's bid-per-call feature in AdWords that recently emerged from beta. He explores some best practices in detail, such as dayparting, training sales telephone reps on taking these calls, and having enough inbound phone lines to support incoming calls. And he reminds marketers that some searchers prefer the combination of calling and clicking, which can influence the quality score of the ad overall. That means advertisers with ads that resonate with both clickers and callers can afford top positions for a lower combined cost per action than their competitors. 
  • Search Emphasizes Cross-Channel Marketing
    Google has been talking up this topic a lot lately: how to integrate onine and offline sales activities. It's not uncommon to see someone in a store aisle looking up information on their smartphone about a product they see on a physical store shelf. Julie Batten tells us how the offline promotional materials embed the digital experience. Those slick direct mail pieces and store end-caps now feature rich media content. Batten explains how. 
  • Firefox Releases Default Search Settings For Bing
    Microsoft released the lastest version of Mozilla Firefox with Bing Wednesday. It allows users to set their home page to Bing. Tor Steiner tells us that those who have the latest version of Firefox need only download the Bing Search for Firefox Add-On to set the preference. Bing's default search setting on Firefox is a follow-up to a deal with Mozilla inked last year that offers the Bing engine as an option. 
  • How To Hire A Paid-Search Expert
    Tom Hootman provides insights on what traits to look for when hiring a paid-search agency to manage accounts. In the video, Hootman explains that we should look for a dedicated paid-search campaign expert -- perhaps someone with Google or Bing certification. Make sure the professional understands the needs of the business, rather than expecting the business to put the needs of the paid-search professional first. Be sure to outsource the job to someone who will continually monitor the campaigns and make the necessary changes as required. Pay attention to the reporting structure and the terms and conditions. 
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