Kenneth Cole's real mistake: Tactics without a strategy

Unless you live under a rock, or have a life outside the internet, you've heard about Kenneth Cole's now-infamous Tweet-fuffle:

Tasteless? Yes. And ill-advised.

Tactically it looks brilliant: Surf on a trending hashtag (#Cairo). By tweeting and including that hashtag in his post, Kenneth Cole ensured his tweet would be seen by the millions of people following the crisis in Egypt.

But, that which is tactically clever can also be strategically dumb. Sort of like starting a land war in Russia: You get the jump on everyone, forge your way in, and then get crushed by the combination of winter and people who don't like being invaded.

But I digress.

Cole's error here was not considering the longer-term impact. He grabbed for a bit of quick traffic with what seemed at the time like a light-hearted reference to current events. He forgot that events have participants (in this case, anyone on Twitter), and participants have memories, and unfavorable memories mean unfavorable press.

My advice? Always make sure your marketing tactics fit with your strategy. If they don't, then no matter how good the short-term potential, re-think your Twitter/article/publicity stunt/PR.

Recently, related, or otherwise

• 10 reasons you're not an 'advanced' SEO
• PageRank explained, without the math (really)
• Everything I ever learned about marketing I learned from Dungeons and Dragons
• Four internet marketing agency exit strategies
• Sorry, but your charts are ugly
• Buy the Fat Free Guide to Google Analytics – an e-book by yours truly
• The best marketing ‘trick’? Cultural memory.
• You can now buy Conversation Marketing, the book, in digital format.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/8d-l_qNSEx0/kenneth_coles_real_mistake_tac.htm

survivor redemption island david kovacs iowa high school wrestling boston rob waka flocka

Download IE9

If Microsoft used their primary product to bundle other free products they were giving away to gain market leverage Google would hoot and/or holler. Google demanded that Chrome be shown as an option in Europe when Microsoft was required to market their competitors via BrowserChoice.eu.

Yet if you visit YouTube with an old browser you can see that Google claims it isn't an advertisement, yet somehow Internet Explorer didn't make the short list.

IE9 launched as a solid product with great reviews and enhanced privacy features.

A new version of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer to be released Tuesday will be the first major Web browser to include a do-not-track tool that helps people keep their online habits from being monitored.

Microsoft's decision to include the tool in Internet Explorer 9 means Google Inc. and Apple Inc. are the only big providers of browsers that haven't yet declared their support for a do-no-track system in their products.

I have long been a fan of using multiple web browsers for different tasks. Perhaps the single best reason to use IE9 is that a large segment of your customer base will be using it. Check out how search is integrated into the browser and use it as a keyword research tool.

The second best reason to use it is that sending some usage data to Microsoft will allow them to improve their search relevancy to better compete with Google. As a publisher I don't care who wins in search, so much as I want the marketshare to be split more evenly, such that if Panda II comes through there is less risk to webmasters. Stable ecosystems allow aggressive investment in growth, whereas unstable ones retard it.

Speaking of Google, Michael Gray recently wrote: "They are the virtual drug dealers of the 21st century, selling ads wrapped around other people?s content, creating information polluted ghettos, and they will become the advertising equivalent of a drug lord poised to rule the web."

The problem with Google's ecosystem was not only that it was running fast and loose (hence the need for the content farm update, a problem Google created, and a solution which had major collateral damage along with some unintended consequences, while missing the folks who were public enemy #1).

Beyond that, Google recently announced the ability for you to report counterfeit products advertised in AdWords. Their profit margins are pretty fat. Why did the problem go ignored so long? Why does the solution require you to work for Google for free?

In the following video, Matt winces, as though he might have an issue with what he is saying. "We take our advertising business very seriously as well. Both our commitment to delivering the best possible audience for advertisers, and to only show ads that you really want to see." - Matt Cutts

How does this relate to Internet Explorer 9? Well let's look at what sort of ads Google is running:

I am not sure if that is legal. But even if it is, it is low brow & sleazier than Google tries to portray their brand as being.

If Microsoft did the same thing you know Google would cry. Ultimately I think Google's downfall will be them giving Microsoft carte blanche to duplicate their efforts. Microsoft has deep pockets, fat margins, and is rapidly buying search marketshare. If Microsoft can use their browser as a storefront (like Google does) they have much greater marketshare than Chrome has.

Cory Doctorow's excellent essay "Beware the spyware model of technology ? its flaws are built in" is a great read & warns where the above approach leads.

Categories: 

internet

Source: http://www.seobook.com/download-ie9

len lesser sem progressives united toomer s corner adrianne palicki santorum

Internet marketing in under 300 words

Today, you get to see the ugly, stench-ridden underbelly of my writing process. I actually recorded myself typing this blog post. While I removed a few typos that would've gotten me rated NSFW, the rest is pretty much straight-up:

And, in plain old text, in case you don't want the video version:

There are no tricks to internet marketing.

No secret methods.

It's about connecting with an audience.

It's about building a relationship that lasts.

Just for a second:
Forget "Social Media"
Forget search engines
Forget the internet

Focus on marketing.
Focus. On. Marketing.

...

Great marketing requires that you

1. SHOW UP:
Speak where you'll be heard
= Be found.

2. COMMUNICATE:
Favor 'clear'
Favor 'simple'
= Be understood.

3. CONNECT:
Respond to questions
Help people out
= Please them.

Every person who finds you is a potential customer.
Every person who understands you is a potential salesperson.
Every person you please joins your marketing team.

...

K, you can think about the internet again.

The internet makes marketing easier:

Search engines and social networks help you show up.
The whole web gives you a chance to communicate clearly.
Social media helps you connect with customers.

But it's still marketing:

Show up.
Communicate.
Connect.

I know what you're saying.

There's no trick.

There's no 'method'.

Does this really work?

You tell me:

You've now spent 30 seconds reading plain text.

On a screen.

There's no music.

There's no dancing raisins or speeding cars.

No tricks.

It's just marketing.
Delivered using the internet.

Tricky, huh?

You should try it.

Recent posts

• 18 ways to build morale at a marketing agency (not)
• Internet project management, how we do it.
• Clients aren’t customers: Why most agencies suck at project management
• Why most market research is worthless
• You can now buy Conversation Marketing, the book, in digital format.
• Sign up for my SEO training site: $7/month, forever, cancel any time.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/7y6A0aqAaXE/internet-marketing-under-300-words.htm

internet marketing search engine search engine marketing seo shelly long len lesser sem

Want social media success? Be a nut case.

"Your father's quite the character".

That's what someone said to my son last year while he was getting his acting debut (he's the boy you see swinging upside-down at the video's start). She was referring to my habit of yanking his shoes off while he was on the swing set, and then trying to put them back on while analyzing whether the Death Star could beat the USS Enterprise (hell no).

It's true. I can be a bit, er, eccentric. But everyone is, one way or another. Some people sing to themselves all the time. Others clean their houses compulsively. I torture my children with nerd trivia. I have a stamp on my desk that reads "Find them. AND KILL THEM." There you have it.

Social media requires characters

Sanity is boring. In social media, sanity is also fatal.

If you want to stand out in social media, you can't afford to be 'low-key' or 'mainstream'. You can't 'have wide appeal'. You need to be a character. Just a teensy bit nuts. Loopy, in a friendly kind of way. Some people might even call it 'passionate'.

I'm not talking about being fake, or pretending you're someone you're not. You don't need to fake craziness. You need to tap into your own personal form of craziness. You have one. There's no way you don't. You do something that makes people avoid eye contact and back away slowly.

When you do that, you're also tapping into whatever it is that makes you great at what you do.

I'm a sarcastic Jewish nerd with a yen for writing. Of course I went into marketing! Letting my inner Woody Allen out, just a little, makes writing this blog fun. It also attracts a certain kind of reader - the kind I like to talk to.

It's about getting crazy in a good way. Sort of like me right now. I'm typing like a caffeinated Tasmanian Devil. It's not the most focused thing I've ever written, but damn, it's fun.

Go crazy

Too many companies approach social media like it's going to explode. They're tentative, nervous, and afraid to show any personality when that's precisely what they need to do.

So, Ms./Mr. Fortune 500 CMO, give it a shot. Give us just a teensy taste of what makes your company a nut case. We'll thank you for it.

Related, recent, and blatant self-promotion

• The pre-holiday internet marketing checklist
• In web analytics, everything is relative
• Why ToolBar PageRank is worthless
• Buy my Google Analytics e-book. Only $17 and chock full of analytical goodness
• Or buy my SEO copywriting e-book. Only $7 and chock full of copywriting tips
• Or, sign up for my online SEO training site. $7/month, no strings attached

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/BQtbwBnRlT4/social-media-success-nut-case.htm

seo shelly long len lesser sem progressives united toomer s corner adrianne palicki

5 instant internet marketing upgrades

I've made a bet with myself that, by adding 'instant' and the number '5', I will get triple the normal traffic to this post. If I win, I have to buy myself a chocolate bar.

No fun intro today, so I'll just get to it—five utterly random but simple little things you can do to boost your internet marketing campaign, or at least reduce the damage:

1. Use negative keyword matching. If you're running any kind of pay per click campaign, negative keywords might just save you a lot of money. A negative keyword tells the search engine "Don't show my ad for this word. Ever." That can save you if you're selling, say "hot dogs", and don't want to show up every time someone types in "cute dogs". Go add 'em to your campaign. You'll thank me.
2. Send out 2 useful Tweets a day. Come on, people. It takes about 5 minutes. Find a useful article by someone else, on another web site. Could be the New York Times, or CNN, or a web site about cycling. Whatever you normally read. Then Tweet it. You'll get more followers. Use Hootsuite and you can send the same thing to Facebook, too. At the same time. Without extra work. Later, we can advance to 3 useful Tweets a day. And so on.
3. Ask. You know that gorgeous photo you've got on your home page? The one with your product, or a huge photo of your office? Add the words "Order now" or "Contact us" with a link to the relevant page on your site. You'd be amazed how much that'll improve sales or lead growth.
4. Simplify. Remove 25% of the links you currently have on your home page. Do it. Find the least-useful 25%. Or look in your analytics software and remove the least-clicked 25%. Forget the politics that led to those stupid links in the first place, and yank 'em. You'll get more people sticking around, clicking what you want them to click.
5. Skip one discount. I'll be writing more about this tomorrow. You're about to send out a discount code, aren't you? Discounts are great. But they're also addictive, for you and the customer. Swap one discount for a nice reminder of why your product is so cool. Try it. If you still get orders, maybe you can get by with fewer 10% off emails. If not, you learned and can go right back to the stuff that works.

OK, so none of these were instant. But they're pretty quick, yes? I dare you to try 2 of them.

I double-dare you.

I triple dog dare you!!!!

Other stuff

• Companies need tension: Avoiding the 'you go' effect.
• Don’t be a literary prude: How to write with personality
• 10 phrases that mean your blog post is worthless
• Kenneth Cole’s real mistake: Tactics without a strategy
• 10 reasons you’re not an ‘advanced’ SEO
• Everything I ever learned about marketing I learned from Dungeons and Dragons

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/vpXsG1Ffm3I/5-instant-internet-marketing.htm

national enquirer craigslist mn used cars for sale stupidity cheney stand down order

How to advertise when the giant gorilla doesn't seem to be doing the trick.

This is a guest post by Bruce Lee. Bruce is one of the best marketers and marketing writers I know, and I'm excited to have him writing for Conversation Marketing. Hopefully more from Bruce in the future.

Critters respond to contrast. They tend to ignore conformity. In Jurassic Park, the tyrannosaurus seemed to see prey animals (including lawyers) only when they moved against a static background. Bass fishermen know to jerk their lures through the water, the better to provoke a strike. Even near-microscopic flatworms move in response to changes in light level.

People are critters too. They too respond to contrast, differences, distinctions. This is the very basis of entertainment, for example. Successful entertainers tend to wear unconventional clothing, they tend to move about - often dancing - on a stage that focuses audience attention. They speak louder, or sing. They do so in recognition that doing something out of the ordinary, something with a high "contrast ratio" will draw attention (and sell tickets).

As advertisers and marketers, we need to exploit this characteristic, on behalf of our clients. As "fishers of buyers," our job is to provoke a strike, in the form of a sale.

Few car buyers would cite as a major factor in their decision making process the fact that the dealer had a 40-foot inflatable gorilla in the lot

It isn't easy. It usually doesn't work to just turn up the volume (ala annoying infomercials) or to dress colorfully (most people find clowns to be kind of creepy) or outrageous (few car buyers would cite as a major factor in their decision making process the fact that the dealer had a 40-foot inflatable gorilla in the lot).

Still, people buy differences, not similarities. In commodities (such as groceries), that difference is mostly limited to issues of price or convenience. But even with products or services that seem rather mundane, it's worth sussing out the difference and making that the key selling feature.

This came up recently with a client who sells pizza. When asked why people should patronize his business instead of the many others already well established in the marketplace, he cited that he used "fresh ingredients," offered "delivery and pick-up," and that his was a "gourmet" pizza.

Please stifle the urge to yawn.

However, digging deeper, it was revealed that he does a very substantial amount of business in pizzas with gluten-free crusts. It started as a courtesy (and savvy business move) to accommodate gluten-sensitive customers, but it turns out the crusts taste so good, that lots of gluten-insensitive customers became fans.

In this case, we were able to convince the client to focus their advertising message on the unique feature of offering gluten-free crusts. In so doing, they distinguished themselves against of background of "me too" convenience food vendors.

And the pizzas, like the lawyer in Jurassic Park, were gobbled up.

Recent posts and blatant plugs

• Want social media success? Be a nut case.
• My weirdest referring keywords
• The pre-holiday internet marketing list: 20 things you should be doing
• It's holiday shopping season. Don't you know someone in your life who'd love my original book, Conversation Marketing? Or maybe my SEO copywriting or web analytics e-books? C'mon, you know you do.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/u7VEc3f86-k/how-to-advertise-gorilla-not-working.htm

search engine marketing internet marketing search engine search engine marketing seo shelly long

Control Your Brand's Reputation Using SEO

Branded search is your moneymaker, but is probably also the most neglected aspect of SEO. Here are some ways to keep your branded traffic coming into your site with a positive outlook. ...

Source: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sew/~3/d6IP5cc96r0/3642077

iowa high school wrestling boston rob

Dear Client: I Love You, But Will You PLEASE Stop Obsessing Over Your Search Engine Rankings?

by Stoney deGeyter

Dear Client:

I love you. I really do! But please, for the love of all that is good and holy, will you stop obsessing over search engine rankings?

I get it, you hired me to perform Search Engine Optimization on your website. Why do we optimize for search engines? For rankings, right? Well, no, not anymore. It's been almost a decade since the SEO industry began it's turn toward a fuller website marking experience, looking beyond search engine rankings as a metric of success, and instead looking at business growth, conversion rates, and return on investment.

Rankings are a traffic delivery mechanism. Traffic can be hit or miss. Not all traffic is targeted. We see it all the time, clients like you are looking for rankings for your industry terms. But, quite often the time and effort needed to rank these favorite phrases holds no value compared to the conversions it delivers. That means, the ROI just isn't there.

Instead of focusing on these "pet" terms, and potentially wasting thousands of dollars in the process, I could be focused on building exposure through some other relevant terms that have a better conversion rate and give you a much higher return on investment.

I understand where you're coming from: You need rankings to get traffic, and you need traffic to get conversions. But, would you be happy if I could help you get more traffic and conversions, even if your favorite keywords were not ranking? Would you trust me if I told you that not all the keywords you care about are valuable?

I hope you hear what I'm saying. I totally understand that you need exposure on the search engines to get the traffic and the conversions you need. But, rankings for certain high-traffic, low value keywords isn't going to give you both. Oh, you'll get traffic, but you'll see your conversion rates plummet.

My question to you is, who will you blame when you see conversion rates go down? Is it the design team, the usability team, the marketing team, the SEO team? It may not be anybody's fault, except that you're ranking well for very poor converting keywords.

Finding Keywords that Deliver

In an ideal world, EVERY industry related keyword would bring you quality, converting traffic. But, a few minutes looking at the keyword research data will tell you otherwise. Every industry has thousands of terms that are not relevant for any particular site within that very industry. It's true for your competitors, just as it's true for you.

Good optimization is all about finding the right keywords. Not just industry terms, but terms which match the searcher's intent for the product, service, or information you offer. Sometimes the searcher's intent is clear in the search phrase. Many times, it's not. If the intent isn't clear, you can do two things: Guess or test.

Guessing at the intent means you either assume it is a valuable keyword or it isn't. In SEO, this can be a huge gamble. Guess wrong, either way, and you are either potentially wasting a ton of time, or you're losing out on a lot of potential conversions.

The better option is to test. The best way to do that is via PPC. Throw up some ads using your testing keywords, and see what happens. If the keyword converts at a rate comparable to other keywords, then you have yourself a winner. If not, you just saved yourself from wasting a bunch of resources on optimizing a loser.

Rankings Don't Always Matter

If you know all your keywords are winners, you still have to be careful about measuring rankings over results. There is a lot more to a good conversion than ranking for your best terms.

Did you know that in some circumstances you can actually get more traffic by ranking lower in the results? It happens all the time. Why? Because your title and description tag are written to drive the click and conversion more so than to get rankings.

You can tweak your title to improve clicks and conversions, and that may cost yourself some ranking positions. But, if you tweak it for rankings, you may lose both clicks and conversions. It's not always win/lose, sometimes you can win-win, but the better win is the conversion.

Yes, We Know a Thing or Two About Conversions

Searcher expectations play a significant role in the ability of your site to convert visitors to customers. Quite frequently, you, dear client, have rejected our usability recommendations. I know, you just want rankings, what do we know about usability? Well, quite a bit, actually.

Remember earlier when I said SEO has moved into online marketing rather than just rankings? Well, this is what we mean. We understand that, for what you're paying us, if you have a bunch of top rankings and no business, we'd lose you as a client. You can't sustain a business that doesn't grow. So it's in our best interest to help you grow your business.

That means, we have to look beyond search engine rankings. Our goal is to help you deliver the most qualified traffic, and make sure that it isn't wasted. If you have a qualified lead, your ability to convert that lead is only as good as how good your sales person (or website) is. Well, we don't just bring people to your door, we want to help you sell them as well.

That means we have to know a thing or two about website usability. This goes hand-in-hand with SEO. We can optimize a page for certain keywords, and we can get that page to rank, but we also have to make sure that the page delivers the message required for that visitor. Put simply, we have to make sure the optimization meets the visitor's expectations!

Did you know that the search engines know when someone spends time on your site or quickly exits and goes back to the search pages? You can bet that this data is important to them. If too many people are "bouncing" off your site and choosing another in the search results, this is an indicator that the site did not meet their expectations. This means, no matter how well optimized and ranked, the page is a dud and will be very difficult to rank.

Not only did the visitor not find what they wanted on that page, but they weren't even interested in looking further on your site. That's bad news.

We Want You To Succeed

It all comes down to this: Why pay us to drive 10,000 visitors to your site if you are only able to convert .05%? Wouldn't it be more lucrative to drive only 5,000 visitors while improving your conversion rate to 3%?

Absolutely!

The goal is to increase conversion rates AND traffic. But, more often than not, improving your conversion rates will produce the better ROI. That doesn't mean you ignore search engine rankings, but it does mean that you make sure that you're not just looking at rankings as the end game result.

Rankings are a great way to generate traffic, and they should not be ignored. But, they also should not be obsessed over. It's time to start looking at the bigger picture. Look beyond which keyword is ranking where and dive into your analytics to find out where your conversions are coming from and what you can do to improve those.

That may mean focusing on some new keywords. That may mean increasing rankings for others. That also may mean ignoring the very keywords that you're obsessing over.

Search engine rankings are, and always will be, important. Though, with social, local, and personalized results being mixed in, the value of a ranking has been greatly diminished. Just because you see a keyword ranking great, doesn't mean your audience is.

Which is just yet another reason why you should stop obsessing over rankings and start obsessing with us over your business' online success!

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Source: http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/dear-client-i-love-you-but-will-you-plea.php

search engine search engine marketing seo shelly long len lesser sem progressives united

Google Shows True Colors With BeatThatQuote Spam

Guidelines are pushed as though they are commandments from a religious tome, but they are indeed a set of arbitrary devices used to hold down those who don't have an in with Google.

When Google nuked BeatThatQuote I guessed that the slap on the wrist would last a month & give BTQ time to clean up their mess.

As it turns out, I was wrong on both accounts.

Beat That Quote is already ranking again. They rank better than ever & only after only 2 weeks!

And the spam clean up? Google did NOTHING of the sort.

Every single example (of Google spamming Google) that was highlighted is still live.

Now Google can claim they handled the spam on their end / discounted it behind the scenes, but such claims fall short when compared to the standards Google holds other companies to.

• Most sites that get manually whacked for link-based penalties are penalized for much longer than 2 weeks.
• Remember the brand damage Google did to companies like JC Penny & Overstock.com by talking to the press about those penalties? In spite of THOUSANDS of media outlets writing about Google's BTQ acquisition, The Register was the most mainstream publication discussing Google's penalization of BeatThatQuote, and there were no quotes from Google in it.
• When asking for forgiveness for such moral violations, you are supposed to grovel before Google admitting all past sins & admit to their omniscient ability to know everything. This can lead one to over-react and actually make things ever worse than the penalty was!
• In an attempt to clean up their spam penalties (or at least to show they were making an effort) JC Penny did a bulk email to sites linking to them, stating that the links were unauthorized and to remove them. So JC Penny not only had to spend effort dropping any ill gotten link equity, but also lost tons of organic links in the process.

Time to coin a new SEO phrase: token penalty.

token penalty: an arbitrary short-term editorial action by Google to deflect against public relations blowback that could ultimately lead to review of anti-competitive monopolistic behaviors from a search engine with monopoly marketshare which doesn't bother to follow its own guidelines.

Your faith in your favorite politician should be challenged after you see him out on the town snorting coke and renting hookers. The same is true for Googler's preaching their guidelines as though it is law while Google is out buying links (and the sites that buy them).

You won't read about this in the mainstream press because they are scared of Google's monopolistic business practices. Luckily there are blogs. And Cyndi Lauper. ;)

Update: after reading this blog post, Google engineers once again penalized BeatThatQuote!

Categories: 

google

Source: http://www.seobook.com/true-colors

sports illustrated swimsuit 2011 bonnaroo 2011 lineup rumors medal of freedom sing it for the boys sing it for the girls bonaroo 2011

The Marketing Uncertainty Principle

By Bruce Lee, marketing copywriter

"Anyone who says that they understand Quantum Mechanics does not understand Quantum Mechanics"- Richard Feynman

Yes, I am about to draw a comparison between marketing and quantum physics. (I'll wait a moment for those of you who believe you came to the wrong classroom to head for the door.)

Quantum physics (the study of the very, very small) is, at its heart, about probabilities. This characteristic led Albert Einstein, who felt that the theory was incomplete, to remark, "God does not play dice with the universe."

Here's the kind of thing that bugged him: Take at close look at a group of 100 atoms of uranium 235 (take your time, you're gonna need it). Every once in a while, you'll see a thing called an alpha particle buzz off and in doing so, change the atom from where it came from uranium into lead. Wait around about 704 million years (I warned you), and half of the atoms will have changed identity.

Here's the rub: During that entire time, no matter how hard you tried, you'd never be able to accurately predict which of those atoms was going to emit the alpha particle. All the evidence we have (and it seems pretty unequivocal) says that this inability to predict isn't our fault, for not knowing enough about some hidden forces bouncing around in the atom, for example. No, this is just how it is. We can, with 100% confidence, know that, after 704 million years, half of the uranium will have turned into lead, but we can never, I repeat, never, know when and which atom will transmute during that time.

People seem to be a lot like uranium.

In my last post, I related my experience with using past behavior and demographics to predict future buying behavior. Bottom line: It didn't work. I could, with a very high degree of accuracy, determine what percentage of a group would respond to my offer, but I could never seem to predict - above the level of random chance - the behavior of any single individual.

Again, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I believe most of the world's troubles come from over-simplifying and stereotyping people, manifested in characteristics such as racism, sexism, jingoism and...(insert your least favorite "ism" here).

What's weird is that we all know this. None of us has ever met anyone who is identical to someone else. We're all aware that the future is unpredictable.

And yet many of us continue to visit readers and advisors, astrologers and "psychics." We pay them, all the time recognizing the dissonance: if the psychic could really foresee events, they would buy the right stocks and lottery tickets. They don't, because they can't.

And we, as marketers, keep trying methods to increase the probabilities of predicting buying behavior.

Despite what you might think from what I've written so far, I'm not giving up, because I think the name of this site alludes to something that just may work - a method of marketing that has always seemed to be effective, and has been greatly enabled, thanks to the Internet. It's a form of persuasion that recognizes and capitalizes on the uniqueness of individuals.

It's called Conversation Marketing. I'll have more to say about it next time around.

Disclaimer: The portion of this post describing the transmutation of uranium was lifted from another self-penned article, entitled Oprah's fat again and she doesn't know why.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/zF5QuU95oUI/marketing-uncertainty-principle.htm

toomer s corner adrianne palicki santorum survivor redemption island david kovacs

Yahoo! Search Direct

What is Search Direct?

Yahoo! announced search direct, a new beta product launched in the United States which is similar to Google Instant, but extends a bit further.

It works by extending the search interface to include a layer before the results come up. The layer typically includes a left column of related keywords & a right box that can be anything from:

• 3 top websites for that query
• a weather forecast
• stock information
• the profile of a celebrity
• other unique data sets

Here is an example of how the search box flies out

Here is an overview video from Yahoo!

Arbitrage or Helpful?

It is easy to laugh at Ask.com when thinking about the spammy end of the "answers engines" (or even Yahoo! Answers for that matter), but this search direct could range from highly useful to pretty weak depending on what Yahoo! decides to do with it. It's impact on various markets can range from trivial to significant.

What Powers Search Direct?

The ranking algorithm for Yahoo! Search Direct is different than their core results, being powered off a smaller index with its own algorithm, with a rapid refresh rate. Greg Sterling asked Yahoo!'s Shashi Seth about what drove the algorithm:

Seth told me that right now the links and content being shown in the right part of the box are the URLs that are the ?most clicked? throughout the Yahoo network. He also implied that it might get more nuanced over time. And he added that rankings can change moment to moment because it?s dynamic.

That click bias has a natural preference toward promoting Yahoo! properties (since Yahoo! users like Yahoo! stuff) and promoting those who are featured on the Yahoo! network through editorial partnerships.

Greater Integration of Self Promotion

One of the benefits of Yahoo! outsourcing search is that they can now claim that they are not a search engine, which gets them around a ton of conflict issues, and allows them to aggressively self-promote without the type of scrutiny Google has come under for hard-coding their search results. Currently Yahoo! Search Direct is not yet running ads, but it is full of self-promotion. It is not a great sign for the longevity of Yahoo! Search that when you start typing almost every letter of the alphabet leads to a downstream Yahoo! product. In the past, search engines which have over-monetized have seen marketshare erode to Google. Hopefully this stuff pushes people to Bing though!

In key verticals where Yahoo! is well established the entire preview box is consumed by content from their vertical databases. See, for example, a search for LeBron James

If you are ESPN it becomes much harder to get traffic from Yahoo! Search directly given that sort of layout. If the model proves profitable enough Yahoo! can close off a lot of verticals. The key for web publishers is that Yahoo! has traditionally been horrible at integration, so the odds of them doing this in a way that monetizes more aggressively without harming Yahoo!'s search marketshare are pretty low. Having wrote that, last year Yahoo! bought Associated Content and has been pushing hard at growing their news, sports & finance verticals. If they are able to instantly tap a large share of the search market & can throw up a featured promotion for some of their key content then that will lead to lots of usage data (Microsoft has already mentioned using clickstream data to create a search signal) & social signals (like Facebook likes) that can bleed into improving the ranking of Yahoo! content in other search engines.

Custom Ad Units

The showing of a mini-search box not only gives them the potential for further self-promotion, but it also allows them to run more custom ad units that are in full focus of the end user. When you display a full search result you are offering a list of options, but premium placement ads in the preview box can allow for tighter integration of video, audio, or other custom ad units within search.

Yahoo! has already put sponsored mortgage rates table in their search results. Now if they want to do something like that they can have it own the whole of the interface, sorta like Google has done with their local results. It will also allow Yahoo! to test video results in the search results, something Google is getting into as well.

Yahoo! has also taken branded search ads one step further, with a wrap around on certain keyword queries, like eBay.

Shortcomings

Where Yahoo! Search Direct falls short, especially when compared against Google Instant is it's force of pushing a single vertical for keywords that can have many meanings. Take, for example, a search on cars. If you don't want the DVD, you are still forced to view information about the cartoon movie because a Yahoo! vertical has a match.

Another thing Yahoo! seems to be doing is force feeding a local option as the last suggested keyword, even where it is totally irrelevant. In the long run I think this would harm Yahoo! local as a true destination, but it can drive short term volume. Of course this only just launched, so it will likely become more relevant as they track how users interact with it. Currently someone is likely registering a Yahoo! local profile with Viagra in it somewhere. :D

Categories: 

yahoo

Source: http://www.seobook.com/yahoo-search-assist

used cars for sale stupidity cheney stand down order chicago airports bonnaroo 2011