September 2009 Posts from the Internet Marketing Blog
Monthly Blog Roundup: WordStream's September Highlights
Believe it or not, September is over. The aisles of your local CVS are probably already clogged with Halloween candy and plastic pumpkins, if not Xmas decorations. Damn you, time's winged chariot!
Point being, it's time for a monthly roundup of highlights from the WordStream blog. In case you missed them the first time:
... Click here to read full postUsing WordStream to Improve your Content Creation and SEO Ranking
The following is a guest post by Marshall Sponder of WebMetricsGuru.
I was thinking about several keyword tools out there offering basic analysis of what’s popular, including WordStream’s own free keyword tool, but none of them approaches WordStream's keyword management solution in its sophistication and prompting to help us make the right choices for our search marketing campaigns. I don’t run any paid campaigns, so I don’t use WordStream in the same way many users do, nor is that the focus of this article (you can learn about using WordStream's solutions for PPC in this video).
... Click here to read full postSEO Guide for College Websites, Part Two
Once again, this SEO for College Websites post comes on the heels of my popular yet somewhat contentious post on top seo college websites. I'm writing a follow up to share advice to colleges that are struggling with search engine optimization (SEO). These SEO tips should give colleges some ideas on how best to optimize their websites to rank better in higher education search verticals and attract more students though search engine marketing.
In SEO for College Websites, Part One, I covered how to conduct effective keyword research and how to create killer degree page title tags for SEO. In this post, I'll discuss how to optimize your degree page content and how to acquire some quality inbound links.
... Click here to read full postPPC Advertising Project for Non-Profits
We got an interesting email the other day from our friend Jim Jansen, assistant professor at the College of Information Science and Technology at Penn State. If you haven't heard of Jim yet or aren't familiar with his research in search marketing and searcher behavior, read our recent interview with him here: Jim Jansen on Click Behavior and SERP integration.
Jim told me about a really cool project he and his students are doing in his PPC advertising course (BTW, how cool is a class on PPC advertising?). He and 55 of his technology and advertising students at Penn State are creating keyword advertising campaigns for eleven non-profit organizations. Apparently, the students will be implementing paid search campaigns for these eleven non-profits, as well as doing some SEO work and optimizing landing pages for their websites.
... Click here to read full postReputation Management Just Got Harder (And More Expensive)
This was a big week in the blogo- and Twittersphere for poorly received product launches: Two new products from Google and Squidoo threaten to become reputation management nightmares, if they manage to catch on. Ironically, the products also threaten to (further) tarnish the reputations of their creators.
Brands in Public: A Big Misstep from Seth Godin?
Seth Godin this week announced a new product/service from Squidoo called Brands in Public:
If your brand has any traction at all, people are talking about you. Of course, they've always talked about you, but now they're doing it in writing, in video and in public.
Today, Squidoo (a company I founded) is launching Brands in Public. It's a neat idea and I wanted to give you an overview and a first look.
... Click here to read full postYou Asked For It: Free Keyword Tool Serves Over 100 Million Keywords in First Week
Despite billions of searches month in and month out (more than 9 billion in July alone), Google continues to report that nearly 20% of all search queries each month are unique—that is, they have never been searched on before. To help address this challenge, we launched a free keyword suggestion tool last week for specialists and agencies providing pay-per-click (PPC) marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) services.
... Click here to read full postFind the Unfindable: 12 Ways to Find Anyone's Personal Email Address
Give me someone's name, and I'll find their personal email address. Sure, it may take some extensive digging and sleuthing, but I'll find you eventually. And I'm not paying to root you out or buying your private info from a lead gen company (though sometimes that would be easier). This is just good old fashioned, organic searching, scanning and scouring the Internet like a Web gumshoe. And not stopping until I ferret out that personal email.
Why is it important to obtain someone's personal email address?
If you're sending out an important email that you really want to be taken seriously and improve your chances of getting an actual response, you need to go directly to the source. Sending an important, personal email to the info[at]companyX.com, or dumping it into a "Contact Us" form is a virtual black hole.
... Click here to read full postWordStream Believes: PPC and SEO Are Continuous, Iterative Tasks
This is Part 4 of a 10-part series on 10 things we believe about search marketing. These 10 beliefs form our product design philosophy.
One of the most powerful aspects of search as a marketing channel is the abundance of data you can measure and respond to. Web analytics applications provide a wealth of information about your website, your audience and how they interact. Specific to search, they tell you exactly how people are finding your site: What key words and phrases are users typing into search boxes to discover what you offer?
If you look at this data but don't respond to it, you're throwing away potential gains in traffic and revenue. Search marketing, if it's going to offer strong ROI over the long term, requires dedication and commitment.
... Click here to read full postIdentifying the Right Niche Keywords - Huomah (SEO Dojo) Guest Post
David Harry was nice enough to put up a guest post I wrote today: How to Identify the Best Keywords for Your Niche. In it I talk about:
- Finding Keywords
- Refining Your Keyword List
- Evaluating the Difficulty of Ranking
- Making Your Keyword Research Efforts an Iterative Process
Please check it out and let me know what you think in the comments!
Incidentally if you haven't checked them out, David's blog is excellent, his SEO newsletter is great, and he maintains an active community of very smart SEO/SEM folks.
... Click here to read full postDid We Mention Keywords? Did We Mention Free?
OK, what happened this week on the World Wide Web? A couple of important things: Kanye West made a jackass of himself, and we launched a new free keyword tool!
Larry blogged about the tool on Wednesday, covering why and how we developed it, what it offers that other tools don't, and why, as awesome as it is, you still need keyword management to really get somewhere in SEM. You can read yet more about the tool in our Free Keyword Tool FAQ.
Today I want to point to some of the other conversations going on around the newly launched tool, and thank everyone who took the time to mention us on blogs and on Twitter.
... Click here to read full post
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