Yearly Archives: 2008
Elizabeth Marsten13 Oct, 2008
More Revenue for Google with First Page Bids
Since the latest Quality Score update, one of the new features was doing away with the “inactive” classification for keywords whose maximum cpc was below that of Google’s set minimum bid. Instead we have the “first page bid” qualifier which will label keywords with a maximum cpc too low to appear on the first page… Read More
Featured Ian Lurie13 Oct, 2008
E-Commerce Lessons (a rant)
Please don’t take this personally, unless you’re a crappy developer, in which case I don’t care. For less rant and more information, see 17 Features for E-Commerce Success. I’m angry (angrier). I am sick of the following story: Client hires developer to build e-commerce site. Developer nods vigorously when asked if they know how to… Read More
Ian Lurie9 Oct, 2008
Steve’s Wrong: Pagerank is a Horrible Measure of Online Influence
Steve, Steve, Steve. Pagerank? The ‘ultimate measure’? Really? I tried to resist the urge to link to his recent post, where he says that Pagerank is the ultimate measure of online influence. But that’s like trying to ignore your kid’s stinky diaper in the hopes your spouse will take care of it: It only stinks… Read More
Tom Schmitz8 Oct, 2008
Identify Top Bloggers
Becoming active in social communities and on blogs is an important element of social media marketing. One way to do this is to read blogs by others in your sector and in your target market’s sector, then subscribe to the leaders. Select a handful of bloggers with whom to build relationships. Comment regularly on their… Read More
Internet Marketing Ian Lurie8 Oct, 2008
October 16th Internet Marketing Triage Webinar: More Info
Note: Webinar cancelled – more info here. Sign ups for my October 16th internet marketing triage webinar have been, uh, less than stellar nonexistent. So I thought I’d give it another shot. October 16th, I’ll be doing a 90-minute webinar on internet marketing. My focus: Those first things you have to do if you’re going… Read More
Ian Lurie6 Oct, 2008
Nah, You Don’t Need A Blog
You don’t need to tell the public about your product and why it inspires you. You don’t need any great, SEO-friendly content, either. Oh, yeah, don’t worry about that connection to the entire blogging world. You don’t need it, either. A place where you can quickly post messages about product changes, or news stories about… Read More
Internet Marketing Ian Lurie3 Oct, 2008
59 Things Webinar, October 16th – Sign Ups Open
Note: Webinar cancelled – more info here. I’m starting a webinar series on internet marketing. For lack of a great, clever name, I’m calling it my Internet Marketing Webinars. Webinar 1: 59 Things You Should Be Doing The first one will be based on my 59 Things list. I’ll go into more detail on the… Read More
Internet Marketing Ian Lurie1 Oct, 2008
14 Instant Landing Page Upgrades
Landing pages are a great way to generate sales from pay-per-click ads and e-mail campaigns. Folks click the ad and get a page tailored to their exact needs: You get more conversions, the customers are happy. Unless, of course, your landing page sucks. A few tips to make an instant improvement: Remove unnecessary fields. If… Read More
Ian Lurie30 Sep, 2008
3 Things Your Description Tag Must Contain
The description META tag won’t do much to improve your rankings. But it’s really important. If you write a good description tag, your search results will look something like this: Search engines pull the ‘snippet’ you see above from the description tag. If you don’t write one, or write a lousy one, you might end… Read More
Elizabeth Marsten30 Sep, 2008
ABC Search | A Positive ROI
Continuing our coverage on 2nd and 3rd tier PPC engines, we’ve come to ABC Search. A little platform that could out of Encino, CA. ABC Search is a search engine themselves, but also rather a mediator and distributor of ads to partner sites from advertisers through their “Adentify” content network. They claim 1billion searches a… Read More
Ian Lurie29 Sep, 2008
5 Tips To Make Sure You’re Speaking to the Right Audience: Congress Bails on the Bailout
President Bush could have seen his bailout package passed two weeks ago, by a clear majority. But he spoke to the wrong audience. His audience was not Congress. His audience is American citizenry. If he’d thought about that, he might have said: “This bailout will reduce foreclosures because banks will have more money to lend.… Read More
Ian Lurie27 Sep, 2008
Google Analytics Tip: Learn How They Found That 1 Page.
You can use Google Analytics to figure out how folks found one specific page on your site. That kind of data is extremely helpful if, say, your traffic abruptly spikes on a Saturday morning and you’re trying to figure out why. Here’s how you do it: Log into Google Analytics. If you don’t have it… Read More
SEO Ian Lurie26 Sep, 2008
Test Drive: Evri Search and Discovery Tools
Evri doesn’t bill itself as a search engine. Their motto is ‘Search less, understand more’. It’s a new entry into a field of advanced, semantically-driven knowledge discovery tool. I won’t try to categorize it. I do see them as major acquisition bait, ala Powerset, because their technology could enhance search results. How It Works: Not… Read More
Ian Lurie25 Sep, 2008
5 Tips for Crisis Marketing: The Perils of Being McCain
John McCain took a big gamble yesterday, saying he was suspending his campaign until Congress could work out the $700 billion bailout plan. It was a bad gamble, because he violated 4 of the 5 basic rules of crisis marketing. I usually apply these rules to internet marketing, but they tend to work everywhere: 1:… Read More
Design & Development Ian Lurie25 Sep, 2008
Create Better Slide Presentations: slide:ology
At conferences, three things are a constant: Lack of healthy food. Overabundance of alcohol. Really godawful Powerpoint or other slide presentations. I’ve spent a long time huddled alone in the dark, thinking I was the only one who hated seeing 25 bullets on a slide, individual animated letters and various other forms of visual vomit… Read More