Archive of General Posts

This afternoon we’re headed to Western New York to see my side of the family for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, traveling west on the Massachusetts Turnpike the day before Thanksgiving is never a good idea. I’m preparing for worst. What usually would be a six hour drive surely will eclipse ten; hoping it doesn’t take twelve.

However, the miracles of technology in coordination with solid preparation have me ready for the journey ahead. Here are five recent blog posts I have bookmarked to read in depth and recommend to you if your Thanksgiving travel plans will be anything like mine (and you’re looking for some good material to supplement a long wait at the airport or in the car).  ... Read the full post

The Parasite Source: Wikimedia Commons	Symbiotic Creatures Playing Nice Source: Wikimedia Commons

Note for geeks and sticklers:  While parasites can have a mutually beneficial relationship (mutualism) with their host, I am questioning whether or not there is a parasitic relationship (parasitism) where the host does not benefit.

I’ve been in the SEO trenches since 2000.  Not as long as many, but long enough to form an opinion.

I’ve pretty consistently felt that SEO practitioners who follow best practices, and don’t spend time gaming the system for short-term gains, have helped organize the Internet.  This goes for SEO consultants, in-house SEO practitioners, business owners, etc.  ... Read the full post

[We welcome back Casie Gillette as a guest blogger!!]

This past May I left the world of consulting (and my good friends here at KoMarketing) to take an in-house SEO position at Grasshopper.com, a virtual phone system provider for small businesses.  After four years of being on the agency side, I thought it would be interesting to get a new perspective.

There are certainly some big differences when it comes to in-house and agency life but I have been learning that each side has its own advantages. Lucky for me, KoMarketing was nice enough to let me come back and share them with you:  ... Read the full post

Maintaining a website can be a pain.

Content Management Systems definitely make managing a website’s content easier.  But not all CMS platforms help you keep up with the fast pace of improving your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts.

I will be hosting a free Webinar, along with Dave Crouch of ten24 Website Solutions, that will highlight features you should look for in a CMS that allow for maintaining SEO best practices and that help make content & structural changes to a website easier.

Hope you can join us!

Over the past year or so I have written roughly 30 blog posts.  Some have been better-written than others, and some have had more value than others (that’s blogging for you!).

There are some posts that I have written that I wish had received more exposure than they did.  I might have published them on a day of the week, or time of day, that was not optimal.  The titles of the posts might not have been as compelling as they could have been.  The right people in KoMarketing’s social networks might have seen them.  There are many reasons why the posts did not see the readership that I think they deserve.  ... Read the full post

Google has released a white paper touting the benefits of the Content Network. The paper provides the following analysis:

Ads on the Google Content Network can be an effective way to gain additional conversion beyond those you get via search.

• When used in combination with Search, the median advertiser has a content CPA that’s within approximately 2% of their Search CPA.
• The Content Network drives nearly 20% of total conversions for the median advertiser.

Conversion rates are higher for advertisers who used either of two AdWords campaign management controls: the Conversion Optimizer and site exclusion.  ... Read the full post

The AdWords blog has recently published a post about how they are changing their conversion metrics.

Directly from their post:

Today we’ve taken the first step by clarifying the conversion terminology on the AdWords Report Center and conversion tracking tool pages. “Conversions” columns are now labeled Conversions (1-per-click), while “Transactions” columns are now called Conversions (many-per-click). The current AdWords campaign management pages display 1-per-click conversions, so if one click leads to multiple conversions, they’re counted only once. On the other hand, many-per-click conversions count each conversion that occurs after a click on your ad.  ... Read the full post

Your Master Account in Yahoo functions similarly to the Master Client Center in AdWords.

Whenever you join an account to your Master Account, you gain administrative and editorial control to these accounts.  You then have the option to log in as your master account ID, the original account ID, or you  can create a new user and give this ID access to the joined account.

Once the account is joined you can access their campaigns, data, run reports, and pursue all the functionality of these linked accounts as if you created the account yourself. You can set certain login IDs to “manage” specific accounts and give roles to them related to the account in question.  ... Read the full post

Recently a client was telling me about their Pay Per Click (PPC) program, and how there was an expectation from senior management that they always be present for a particular keyword.  A 1-word keyword.  In a competitive (i.e. expensive) keyword space.

I was saying that it is too bad that they were being asked to waste so much money.  And it is a waste!

But, I was surprised when they told me about a little trick they were using – only displaying their PPC ad for that keyword when and where the CEO would likely be!  ... Read the full post

If you read a lot of pay per click blogs you’ve probably read 100 different posts about how to write good / cool / different / exciting Ad Copy.  So instead of giving the same tired tips over and over, I am going to give a few different tips I’ve picked up over the years.

Use Only Alphanumeric Characters (Excepting &) to Maximize Clickthrough Rate.

Personally I love using dashes and slashes.  I think they look very neat, draw the eye to the ad, and can even save valuable character spaces.  However, I’ve tested dozens of ad versions that had had dashes, slashes, or a combination of both and in almost every instance percentage of clickthroughs were down when compared to a similar ad that did not use dashes or slashes.  ... Read the full post