PlanWebs Web Design, Online Media & Marketing

The New York Times
Google is partnering with “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane to distribute two-minute episodes of a new cartoon, “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy” through its AdSense advertising system. The search giant will syndicate the program to thousands of Web sites that typically attract young men. Instead of static ads, clips of “Cavalcade” will appear where AdWords ads usually go on these sites.

Advertising, of course, will be incorporated into the clips in a variety of ways, including prerolls, banners, or a simple “brought to you by” note appearing at the beginning of each clip. For more money, MacFarlane has been working with advertisers to animate original commercials for “Cavalcade.” While none of the launch advertisers are being revealed, MacFarlane and Google are both saying that several deals are among the largest ever for Google’s 5-year-old advertising system. Google refers to the new service as the Google Content Network. “Cavalcade” carries a multimillion-dollar production price tag.

MacFarlane described the installments to The Times as “animated versions of the one-frame cartoons you might see in The New Yorker, only edgier.” As part of the deal, MacFarlane will receive a percentage of the ad revenue from the 50 two-minute episodes.

Practical eCommerce
“For the majority of small and mid-size, locally-focused businesses, your target market is more defined than everyone living everywhere,” says Lisa Wehr. “With local search strategies for both pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and natural search engine optimization, you can refine your search marketing program, cut costs and grow your business.”

For paid search, go local with regionally defined and geotargeted keywords. Geotargeting helps to restrict your ads to a smaller audience and delivers more qualified leads, while regionally-defined terms can give you wider exposure, yet still allow you to hone in on your target market.

Meanwhile, for SEO, make sure your site has accurate listings on the slew of IYPs and local search sites, from Superpages.com, to Citysearch, to Google Maps. Each one resonates with a different local audience, and their listings also show up within the core search engine results, maximizing your Web site’s exposure.

Conversation Marketing
Ian Lurie offers a step-by-step guide to creating a “great” 404 not found page, including how to build it (via HTML or a Web page editor), upload it and get your server to point to it–whether via Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS) or the open-source Apache server.

He also lists the three components a quality 404 page must have, including a clear statement that the visitor is in the wrong place, advice to help get them back on track (via either links, a search box, etc.), and an option to contact the Webmaster.

What a 404 error page shouldn’t do is automatically redirect a user to the homepage, a Flash page or tedious registration form, or worse–another Web site! Learn more.