• Google's Beta RSS Aggregator
    RSS is still in an early-adoption stage. And, if RSS is a game of follow the leader, then MSN and Yahoo! are the leaders and Google is the follower. But, look out. In their usual innovative fashion, Google has incorporated an RSS reader into Gmail. It's called Web Clips, and it's on top of the screen. Not everybody has it. Google automatically subscribes you to the RSS feeds from Ask Yahoo!, Engadget, and Reuters: Oddly Enough. Of course, Google rotates sponsored advertising from Adsense throughout the feeds.
  • More to Search Than Search
    We all know that search engine optimization and search engine advertising are fantastic marketing tactics but search has a lot more to offer the marketer than just targeted traffic. Every second of every day search engines are gathering huge volumes of data about business and consumers. It is in fact the world's largest and most up to date market research initiative. So search engine data can be used for market research and competitor analysis; you just need to know how to access and interpret it. In this article I will examine just a few of these techniques.
  • Long Live the Consumer Democracy
    The search news as of late has this recurring theme to it: "Show me the money." That leaves some people fearing that the consumer democracy of search will be sold to the highest bidder, leaving users and consumers behind. That's a conspiracy theory you shouldn't subscribe to. By following the money and the facts, you'll find there's both a reassuring conclusion and a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.
  • Search Will Get You the Lead, But the Rest Is Up to You
    Let me tell you a story. In my company, we recently decided that we would invest in bringing a new service in-house. The cost to do so, with required hardware and software, will be about $34,000 U.S. Having more than a passing interest in this particular expenditure, I did some preliminary consumer research. In the textbook case of how we all say search works, I turned to a search engine. I did my search and ended up clicking on a sponsored link because it seemed to be the most relevant one.
  • RSS Effects on Search
    RSS feeds have search engine optimization benefits for both the publisher of the feed and the syndication Web site/subscriber base. The RSS publisher receives two forms of Web traffic. First, from the natural traffic driven from the syndication Web sites/subscriber base (without the search engines). The second form the RSS publisher receives is the search engine optimization (SEO) benefit of having their text link on the entire subscriber base's sites/blogs. Link popularity has always been an important criteria in the measurement of page rank. Here's another way of saying it. RSS publishers can have their text link on potentially …
  • Wanted: Paid Content, Osama
    Ever search for something online and come up short? A number of recent announcements target that sense of loss. The parties coming to the rescue include Yahoo!, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the National Security Agency. The last two aren't the typical agencies referred to when it comes to search engine marketing; it's a sign that the industry is just starting to get interesting. Everyone has a vested interest in search.
  • A Powerful Influence on the Evolution of News Publishers
    The news industry represents our society's fourth estate and a voluminous contributor of trusted content, but it also is a business in flux. Among the powerful agents shaping this industry - particularly the traditional print variety - is the Internet. Consider just a few of the digital variables: never-ending and instantaneous news cycles; stagnant demand for paper and preference for customized platforms; the rise of citizen media and bloggers' influence on the news production cycle; the commoditization of various news types; the breakdown of geographic legacies; and the propensity of Internet start-ups to stealthily disrupt and claim classifieds and other …
  • Driving Search Traffic Without an Engine
    We, as online marketers, have become very dependent on search engines - almost obsessed. Click prices are going up. Return on investment is getting tougher to improve. Search has become an entire industry. Companies dedicate teams. We have our own trade shows, conferences, technologies, and specialized search firms. Has search become the king of driving online traffic? Are we trapped into playing the search engine game, if we want to drive quality traffic? What about e-mail? What about banner ads? We all know they are less effective than search marketing. Hmmm. Let's see. How can we as online marketers drive …
  • Paula, Pedro, and the Right Brain of Search
    At the OMMA West conference in San Francisco last week, I had a debate with someone over whether the proper term for search engine marketing professionals is "search geeks," "search dorks," or "search nerds" (I'm partial to the first). Maybe we relish the geekiness a little too much--so much that we forget how creative SEM is. It might also explain Rishad Tobaccowala's troubling advice.
  • Blink, Thin Slicing, And The Art Of Search Marketing
    In Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, he examines how we make decisions in a split second, and how these intuitive decisions are often more valid than ones we labor over for months.
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