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Online Reputation Management A Call To Action

by The Guy.

First of all, credit where credit is due. Elixir Sytems, a search engine marketing company out of Phoenix has an excellent white paper on online reputation management posted on the SEMPO site here.

They’re definition of online reputation managment as a cross between marketing, public relations and search engine optimization is pretty much on the money. Once the domain of public relations, reputation management has witnessed a migration from the hands of primarily, the media into the hands of the consumer.

Should I use a .ca top level domain (TLD) for my Canadian site?

by Jeff Quipp.

(of course substitute .com.au in Australia, co.uk in England, etc.)

 

Ahhh … a question we get often, and one without a standard answer. Rather, the answer is based on your particular situation. So, take a minute to consider the questions below, and voila, you’ll have an answer.

1)      Is your site on a well established domain?

Vertical Search Poised For Dizzying Heights

by The Guy.

A couple of weeks ago now, okay, a month ago now… The (SEP) Guy has been busy… Piper Jaffray released its Internet Media & Marketing Report.

One the more interesting findings was the opportunity that abounds and remains untapped in search. More specifically, in Local Search or to put it another way, Niche Search or to put it another way, Vertical Search. Greg Jarboe had an interesting perspective at SearchEngine Watch with Piper Jaffray Maps Out Where the Search Industry is Headed.

Google Adwords Overqualified Company….

by The Guy.

Famed adman David Oglivy is usually credited as having said: “Half my advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half.” In fact, it was actually John Wannamaker, considered the father of modern advertising.

No matter who said it, ROI (Return On Investment) or in Googlespeak, ROAS (Return On Advertising Spend) has long been the bane of marketers and advertisers alike.

Google was supposed to have solved that but according to ex-Google employee Adam Goldberg, responsible for the $500 million team behind Google Adwords, this may not in fact be the case. According to the ZDNet Digital Markets blog posting by Donna Bogatin, Google clients ‘frustrated’ by unprofitable AdWords buys,

What they’re up against

by Ruud Hein.

When Google appeared on the search engine market there was virtually nothing. People who were using HotBot were considered geek and into computers.

Search was a big business, for sure, but it wasn’t like a whole slew of large search engine companies was out there.

Search was mostly an also done. You had a portal or a whole family of sites — and search. Don’t really need search as you already offer what anyone would ever need, right? Anyway, let’s slap it on there. Bam. Search. Thanks.

Who is Yahoo!?

by Ruud Hein.

This week a for many sites relatively unknown search engine referrer put itself in the spotlight with the announcement that starting in May they will expand email storage for all of their users from 1GB to … unlimited.

Bam!

That got a lot of people’s attention: “Storage in the cloud!”, “The fight for user content!”, “Gmail left in the dust!”, “Others will soon follow!”

Which is great news for Yahoo! and almost an ode to the stealth with which they operate. Really, this is no news.

Yahoo! has been outdoing, bypassing and surpassing Google since a long, long time.

Comparative Search Tools - Dare To Compare

by The Guy.

The (SEP) Guy had to get a new car this week. Unexpected expense. Ouch.

Ergo, The (SEP) Guy had to get insurance for the new car. Context: I’m the perfect customer. Sign me up and I’m lazy. I barely open my mail, and check online to see that things have come out of my account as they should. Same goes for my insurance. Rate set, I’m good to go.

So, a call to my existing insurance company. Info, info, info. Wait. Wait. Wait. Mr. Guy, we’re pleased to be able to inform you your insurance will only being going up by 50%. (P.S. Dear insurance company: Dulcet tones, do not in fact make it any less impactful.) Aaaackkk.

Tainted Pet Food

by The Guy.

Tainted pet food may seem like an odd subject for a search engine blog but it’s an opportunity to talk about seasonaliy, habituation and patterns in search. It is also, oddly enough, an opportunity to talk about Google’s new cost per action in action.

When it comes to patterns in search, I know of no one more informed on the subject than Bill Tancer, General Manager, Global Research at Hitwise.

The Right People At The Right Time

by The Guy.

Partnership marketing can be summed up in one word. Synergy.

Connecting the right corporations with the right products and putting them in front of the right audience at the right time.

It sounds at first a little bit like product placement and to a certain degree it is. Looking for that coat Carrie wore in Season One of Sex And The City, do a search on eVisure.com.

While the devil may wear Prada, your average executive assistant can’t afford to. And that is where people like Ron Kunitzky of Geyser Marketing come into play, by creating partnerships that have a context that makes sense.

Search Results In Search Results posts

by The Guy.

Two very interesting online posts today around Matt Cutts’ comments regarding search results of search results showing up in Google. One from SEORoundTable and the other from Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land.

In his example, Danny used “dvd players”. Curious, I scratched around the longtail terms, searching dvd players by brand names like “Sony DVD players” or “Panasonic DVD players” and I’m even more intrigued by the prospects. Not only will sites like Amazon.com and Bizrate be affected, but so will a couple of other lightweights like, oh, say MSN Shopping and Yahoo! Shopping who also show up in Google results.