PlanWebs Web Design, Online Media & Marketing

Title Tags Tips

PlanWebs — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:32:11 +0000

aimClear
Optimize your tags based on a well-researched keyword strategy and look past algorithm-bait SEO tags, according to Marty Weintraub. Think about fundamental marketing processes because, when you strip away the onion skin, SEO is about writing rich and compelling organic advertisements. Keep the basics in mind and treat every tag and description similar to a PPC ad. “Anything less misses an important opportunity to raise your listing, bookmarks and all good things coming from tags above the fray,” he writes.

Watson believes you should think of title and description tags as the headline and the copy for organic text ads on search engine results pages (SERPs). He notes if a PPC company wouldn’t settle for “branded gibberish headlines lacking a call to action, no point of differentiation from other ads, offering no incentive to click and constructed solely as quality score fodder to play ‘beat the algorithm,”‘ why would most SEOs.

Check if a Site Serves Malware Before Linking for SEO

PlanWebs — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:22:20 +0000

When building links to a site for SEO purposes, it’s easy to simply look at the number of backlinks, content relevance, Linkscape rating, search term rankings and other valuable criteria for measuring the importance and value of a site before acquiring a link on that site to your own.

In terms of checking bad SEO neighborhoods which would link to your site, it’s always good to monitor the inbound links to your potential linking partner’s site, and see what kind of sites those links are coming from and whether or not they belong to obvious link swapping or reciprocal linking schemes. But do you check to see if a site has been flagged for distributing malware? (more…)

Google Bows Keyword Bidding System For YouTube Search

PlanWebs — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:55:39 +0000

Los Angeles Times
At the beginning of 2008, one of Google’s stated objectives was to finally eke out some meaningful revenue from YouTube. And while the search giant has been actively pursuing content and advertising deals for the enormously popular video-sharing site, none of its moves has yet to hit pay dirt. On Wednesday, Google introduced a new auction-based video advertising system, that’s not dissimilar to the one it pioneered in search, which promotes sponsored video clips alongside regular YouTube search results.

Is this the move that finally makes YouTube profitable? It could be: YouTube, after all, has recently become the Web’s No. 2 search provider, after Google itself. “What we’re trying to do is bring the best parts of Google and the best parts of YouTube together,” said Matthew Liu, product manager for the service, called YouTube Sponsored Videos.

The new sponsored video program lets advertisers create ads and bid for placement alongside certain keywords through a new self-service Web site modeled after AdWords. YouTube says the system “levels the playing field” by making the ads available to everyone from individuals to small businesses and major brands. In testing conducted over the last few months, advertisers said the trial campaigns they ran were more effective than banner ads and even some search ads. That said, the prices were dirt cheap, as few advertisers were invited to the test, which meant that popular keywords like “iPhone” were going for 10 cents a click

Don’t Cut SEM, SEO Budgets

PlanWebs — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:58:41 +0000

Internet.com
Despite difficult economic times, experts suggest now is not the time to cut back on SEM and SEO, according to Jennifer Schiff. “With online shoppers saying they plan on cutting back on spending this holiday season, now may be the perfect time for you to optimize your site to attract every prospective customer you can–and keep your current customers coming back for more,” she writes. “Best of all, optimizing your site, giving it a pre-holiday facelift, needn’t be expensive or time consuming. And the return on your investment could (and should) more than offset the cost.”

It may mean redesigning your Web site to make it more attractive to search engine crawlers. Schiff provides an example from CoffeeCakes.com founder Sherry Comes, who says sales increased 50% “almost instantly” after making the site more accessible to Google, Yahoo and MSN. And she did it on a limited marketing budget. The site was redesigned, new content went up, and keyword and meta data reviewed, adding new ones as needed. “Just putting up fresh, new content is like catnip to the search engines,” she said.

Global Budgets To Boost Online Advertising

PlanWebs — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:08:59 +0000

Despite advertisers’ cuts to traditional media budgets and a slowdown in the rate of growth, the total dollars spent on Internet advertising will continue to increase, according to a report from the Rubicon Project to be released today. The report suggests that millions of dollars are being shifted from traditional advertising budgets into online, and that Web advertising has become a global industry that is less subject to any one country’s economy.

E-mail More Influential Than Social Networks

PlanWebs — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:56:17 +0000

For marketers trying to reach the 18- to 34-year-old demographic, e-mail may actually trump those trendy social networks in terms of effectiveness.

While Facebook and MySpace are the sexy channels of communication with this age group, research conducted by Ball State University and ExactTarget show that consumers between 18 to 34 prefer to be targeted through e-mail and direct mail than ads and marketing messages on online social networks.

“It is too easy to assume that the media consumers choose for their own news, information and entertainment are, by default, the best media to use for marketing messages,” said Mike Bloxham, director of Insight and Research at Ball State University’s Center for Media Design.

“This is a dangerous assumption to make in a time when consumers are becoming increasingly aware of their level of control over their media experiences.”

This tarnishes the easy assumption that since social networks are the hot new spot for 18-to-34-year-olds to gather and meet, advertisers should follow their trail and bombard them with ads on those sites.

Of the 1,555 Web users surveyed for the study, those between 18-34 also seemed open to being reached by way of text messaging marketing communications.

In fact, 20 percent of these consumers have already subscribed to receive these communications through text messages. Marketers should not see this as a huge opportunity though, since these consumers only want SMS messages concerning pressing customer service issues like financial alerts and travel updates.

While receptivity to e-mail marketing communications grows with the age of the consumer, the opposite is true for text and instant messaging.

College students were quicker to express dislike for receiving marketing communications through SMS and social networks.

Samantha Skey, formerly with Alloy Media + Marketing, said while students are a “highly reachable” group, “they are also quite protective.”

She added that receiving ads during an online conversation were off-putting to students.

Word-of-mouth remains the most useful form of advertising, according to college students who use the Internet, according to a study conducted by Harris Interactive and released by Alloy Media + Marketing.

Sources:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=93243

http://www.adotas.com/2008/10/study-targeting-18-to-34-year-olds-on-social-sites-may-flop/

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006657

Finding Opportunities In Video Game Ads

PlanWebs — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:17:31 +0000

ClickZ
Online video games and the advent of the networked game console have brought opportunities in search and in-game advertising. The online games connect families, build friendships and allow consumers to cross borders without a passport. So what’s a marketer to do with this information? Identify pockets of the game industry that offer societal benefit and deliver your target audience. Kevin Carney makes a good case for exploring search campaigns and advertising in video games without going into grand details; rather, he provides examples of his real-life experiences with gaming.

Demonstrating possibilities to reach your audience, he writes that “whether or not you’re a proponent of games or gameplay, it’s now impossible to deny they have eclipsed most media in the competition to ‘waste our time.”‘ In the positive sense, he believes that you can’t neglect the societal benefits of gaming.

5 Tools for On-page Image Usage Analysis

PlanWebs — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:06:49 +0000

Image optimization is both vital for “search engine friendliness” and web accessibility. Let’s look at a few top tools that can help you analyze both the aspects of image proper usage:

Juicy Studio Image Analyser is a handy online tool that will look at each image on a given page and evaluate the following parameters:

image width / height;
alternative text;
an URL to an image long description. (more…)