Watch Your Behavior Online, You’re Being Targeted!

admin    Web Marketing     Behavior, Being, Online, Targeted, Watch, You’re

Sounds scary doesn’t it? Well, apparently behavioral targeting is music to advertisers ears because the technique works. Of course, this very same practice is what makes the hairs on the back of the neck of government regulators stand on end. The controversial and growing practice is going to be around though until it is asked to leave the building. Why? It converts.

cnet tells us some more

Want to get digital-policy regulator types fired up? Start talking about behavioral ad targeting, the business of serving up digital ads that are fine-tuned to a user’s Web surfing habits, and you’re sure to get all kinds of wildly varied opinions about privacy and sensitive data.

But a new study from a group called the Network Advertising Initiative, or NAI, claims that behavioral targeting is more than twice as effective as non-targeted ads, and the inventory from behavioral ads is worth double that of their non-targeted brethren. The study found that 6.8 percent of people who click on behaviorally targeted ads turn into buyers, versus 2.8 percent of those who click on non-targeted ads.

Ok, so let’s review. Companies will pay top dollar for this kind of advertising and it converts at a much higher rate to boot? Many advertisers are starting to say “Sign me up!”.

Let’s also look at the source of these numbers as we try to always do here at Marketing Pilgrim. The National Advertising Initiative’s About Us page tells us that

The NAI (Network Advertising Initiative) is a cooperative of online marketing and analytics companies committed to building consumer awareness and establishing responsible business and data management practices and standards. As increasingly sophisticated online advertising technologies evolve, consumer concerns about their impact on online privacy mount. The NAI is prepared to meet these concerns with both effective industry self-regulation and sensible protections for online consumers.

Gee, a rosy picture of an online advertising technique from a group that is made up of online marketing and analytics companies. Hmmmm. The group has also been around since 1999. That’s ten years and more questions than answers thus far.

Since 1999, the NAI has been working with the online advertising industry to provide consumers with clear explanations about data collection, data usage, and choice. Central to our standards are the privacy concepts of notice, consent, control, and dispute resolution.

Looks like industry folks must be missing some of these meetings considering the high degree of government and consumer concern about just how vague most online privacy policies are and the trouble that is created by these less than clear policies.

Once again we are faced with the interesting dilemma of an industry where everything is supposedly tracked to the nth degree. This tracking and gathering of boat-loads (hat tip to Carol Bartz!) of data creates the classic double edged sword that cuts in both directions. In addition, statistics were made to be manipulated just as much as records were made to be broken. this has resulted in many more questions than answers over the years and that is not likely to change anytime soon.

So if you are using behavioral targeting in your marketing efforts the NAI is just the organization for you. As for the future of this practice? That’s anyone’s guess because it’s effectiveness is based on knowing so much about a person that you can predict with greater accuracy their propensity to buy a particular product or service. While this may sound incredible to a marketer it may sound scary to others. It’s the others that marketers should pay very close attention to.

Any thoughts on behavioral targeting and the ‘too much information’ possibilities?

View full post on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim

Three Important Web Marketing Techniques Not Being Utilized By The Real Estate Industry

admin    Website Marketing Companies     Being, Estate, Important, Industry, marketing, Real, Techniques, Three, Utilized

Three important Web marketing techniques not being utilized by the real estate industry

While most real estate companies understand the significance of the web, few are implementing sophisticated traffic generation and website conversion programs. The common flaw in most approaches is the failure to treat traffic efforts and website architecture and design as part of one integrated process. Today’s consumer expects instant and relevant information, and that immediacy and relevancy are at the heart of Google’s success. An effective web program is one that will pick up on the conversation that Google started, extend it into its own website and provide an equally relevant customer experience.

Below are three areas to focus on to facilitate this process:

1) Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising

a) Make ads relevant to the search terms.  The first line of your advertisement should be similar to the actual search term instead of being a brand name.  For example, if someone searches for homes for sale in St. Petersburg, FL, the first line of your ad should be “Homes for sale in St. Petersburg, FL” not the name of your real estate company.

b) Qualify the people who click on your ads. To increase the number of clicks that turn into sales, make it clear in the second line of your advertisement what your website is about. So, under “Homes for sale in Florida,” make a note that this is for a real estate company focusing on selling homes in the area. Therefore, people who are clicking on the ad are doing so because they want to buy a home in St. Petersburg,  not because they want to rent a beach house in Miami.

c) This idea ties into your Quality Score. Google will assign you a score based on how successful your website is. The more people that bounce back from your website after clicking on your ad, the lower your score is.  Keep this high by making it clear what your website is before people click. A high Quality Score will also help to keep the amount you pay-per-click low.

d) Don’t always bid on expensive, commonly searched keywords. A better idea is to bid on the less expensive, more obscure terms.  This way, you can collect a long list of obscure keywords for the same amount of money as a very short list of common terms . People do still search for these keywords and you end up paying less per click then for the more commonly searched ones.

2) Have a Targeted Website

a) Marketing success does not stop at the search engine. Once you get a potential customer to click on your ad, you have to continue that conversation on a successful website.

b) Websites should not be passive brochures that expect the customer to sift through all the pages and data for the information they want. Rather, a website should be an active, intelligent salesperson that figures out who a person is and then gives them the most relevant sales pitch. A car salesman wouldn’t take a look at a family with 5 kids wearing soccer equipment and say “Hi, we have sports cars, coupes, sedans, wagons, minivans, and SUVs.” Instead, they would immediately walk over to the minivan section and show the options there.

c) The website that appears after someone clicks on an ad must be directly relevant to the search terms. You need to build a website capable of showing that potential client exactly what they are looking for. A successful website is not one that is general and has some relativity to the search terms. Instead, it is specifically targeted to continue the conversation started in the search engine.

3) Use Google Analytics Tools

a) After putting the first two techniques into motion, you have to monitor what is happening on your website.

b) Use Google Analytics to analyze your traffic and assess the success of your website. DON’T walk away after completing the first two steps.

c) Google Analytics gives you the opportunity for continuous refinement of your marketing campaign to ensure quality of prospects as well as cost efficiency in your marketing budget.

To sum it all up, the web has a lot to offer in terms of marketing, but it has to be done correctly. Understand how to combine a Google search and a great website into one marketing program, and your campaign is a guaranteed success. Your customers are out there now and they are looking for you.

Are your website pages being indexed by Google and Yahoo?

admin    Google Optimization     Being, google, Indexed, Pages, website, Yahoo

We have already discussed why strong internal link structures are so essential to your SEO strategy for the company website, and we looked at how to better promote strong internal linking.  Adding a sitelink map to your text link navigation menu was mentioned as one major way to ensure better internal links, and we also talked about how these maps should comply with both Google and Yahoo.  It would be a worthwhile exercise to login into both these search engines and confirm that they are both indexing each of your site pages.  Making sure that those pages are engine-indexed does not guarantee higher engine keyword rankings but it certainly does not hurt.  At the very least, you will obtain relevant and valuable data on how well those internal links are functioning as well as which external website pages are actually linked to your internal pages.

Webmasters and SEO guys have not always been able to go to Google and Yahoo and find out if site pages are engine-indexed.  These two engines use to steadfastly keep secret which external pages are linked to your internal ones.  The SEO world has changed, however, and now Google and Yahoo recognize the importance of helping Webmasters and SEOs find out which pages are linked.  So now they offer up the tools to help you.

After designing your site and engine optimizing it, and making sure that you have created an engine-friendly sitemap, you should immediately set up accounts in Google Webmasters Console and Yahoo Site Explorer.  With your sitemap established, you can employ tools from the two search engines to find out if your pages are indexed.

Google Webmasters Console (www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/)

After setting up an account in Console, you can actually add one site or several sites and have multiple ones all registered on a single interface.  There are several tools empowering you to obtain valuable information on your site pages:

ü      Diagnostics Tab: find out in detail if Google spiders are having problems accessing pages (i.e. URLS not found, timed out or restricted by robots.txt, http errors).

ü      Links Tab: click on External Links to view all external links pointing to each of your internal pages.  Click on Internal Links to discover which internal pages are linked to a specific external page.  In both areas you can select Numeric Link to access a list of website pages currently Google-indexed that point to each of your own pages.  Links Tab probably provides you with the most valuable information you will obtain in Console.

ü      Pages Analysis: access a Google Analysis of your site and/or page content

ü      Sitemap Tab: create the sitemap for each of your domains, and feature all pages you want crawled.

ü      Statistics Tab: learn about how Google PageRank is distributed on your site, and which page ranks the highest each month. 

Yahoo Site Explorer (www.siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com)

After setting up an account in Explorer, you can also add one site or several sites but you have to authenticate each of your unique domain names.  Tools allowing you to collect details on your pages include:

ü      Explore: located on the administrative interface, this tool lets you view all site pages which are engine-indexed.

ü      Inlinks: allows you to see how many pages are linked to the page you are “exploring”.  By selecting Except From This Domain on the Show Inlinks dropdown menu you can view just the external links pointing to your site. 

You are advised to visit both Console and Explorer frequently to find out which pages were recently indexed and which pages have external links pointed to them.  The great news for both Webmasters and SEO people is that Google and Yahoo are finally allowing them to obtain detailed and valuable information on their website links.  If you are a Webmaster or SEO person, you would do well to take advantage of such support, as it can only help you formulate a more comprehensive and effective SEO campaign!

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Google Adsense Review – Being a Google Adwords Publisher is a Great Way to Make Money Online

admin    Google Optimization     Adsense, Adwords, Being, google, Great, Money, Online, Publisher, Review

Google Adsense Review – Being a Google Adwords publisher is a great way to make money online. However, you need to follow certain steps to not only become a success, but to avoid becoming banned by Google.

 

Google is very serious about the integrity of the Google Adsense program. This Adsense review will discuss the top dos and donts for using the Adsense program, can help visit www.instant-adsense-dollars.com keep reading to learn where to find the high paying Adsense keywords for optimization of your Adsense web pages. Here are some tips that you MUST follow to become a successful Adsense publisher:

 

1.Be sure to read the Adsense Terms and Conditions and Program Policies thoroughly and comply with them at all times – no exceptions! Google is almost fanatical about its guidelines being complied with. It is absolutely critical that you comply at all times with every Adsense term and condition and policy to avoid having your account (and all your Adsense ads) shut down by Google.

2. If you are new to Adsense don’t assume you know anything at all about being a successful publisher. Read up on absolutely everything you can find about the program and make sure you have the correct tools at hand to become a success.

3. Become an expert at optimizing your sites and web pages. This does take some little time and effort on your part but the correct ad placement, and the right choice of top paying keyword, means the difference between a click through ratio of 0 and a click through ratio of 8 percent or more.

4. Spend a lot of time searching the web looking at examples of other publisher’s Adsense websites and see how each individual site, including blogs, is benefiting from Adsense.

5. Google will not tolerate you clicking on your own ads so don’t even think about it.

6. Don’t ask your friends and family members to click on your ads. You can earn money instead by referring them to the program themselves.

7. Don’t join the program simply to make money. It is NOT a get rich quick scheme. It will take time and effort to make a profit.

8. While the program is relatively user friendly don’t expect to get a complete grasp of how everything works as soon as you start. Expect to take a short while to get used to everything and to learn every facet of becoming a successful Adsense publisher go to www.adsense-income-exposed.com By following this list of dos and donts you are well on your way to becoming a successful Adsense publisher. One of the fundamentals of Adsense success is optimizing your web pages with the best top paying adsense keywords.

http://www.googleadsense-empire.com

http://www.google-atm-machine.com

need a website? want to be #1 on Google? visit our florida web design company homepage

Google Adsense Review – Being a Google Adwords Publisher is a Great Way to Make Money Online

admin    Google Optimization     Adsense, Adwords, Being, google, Great, Money, Online, Publisher, Review

Google Adsense Review – Being a Google Adwords publisher is a great way to make money online. However, you need to follow certain steps to not only become a success, but to avoid becoming banned by Google.

 

Google is very serious about the integrity of the Google Adsense program. This Adsense review will discuss the top dos and donts for using the Adsense program, can help visit www.instant-adsense-dollars.com keep reading to learn where to find the high paying Adsense keywords for optimization of your Adsense web pages. Here are some tips that you MUST follow to become a successful Adsense publisher:

 

1.Be sure to read the Adsense Terms and Conditions and Program Policies thoroughly and comply with them at all times – no exceptions! Google is almost fanatical about its guidelines being complied with. It is absolutely critical that you comply at all times with every Adsense term and condition and policy to avoid having your account (and all your Adsense ads) shut down by Google.

2. If you are new to Adsense don’t assume you know anything at all about being a successful publisher. Read up on absolutely everything you can find about the program and make sure you have the correct tools at hand to become a success.

3. Become an expert at optimizing your sites and web pages. This does take some little time and effort on your part but the correct ad placement, and the right choice of top paying keyword, means the difference between a click through ratio of 0 and a click through ratio of 8 percent or more.

4. Spend a lot of time searching the web looking at examples of other publisher’s Adsense websites and see how each individual site, including blogs, is benefiting from Adsense.

5. Google will not tolerate you clicking on your own ads so don’t even think about it.

6. Don’t ask your friends and family members to click on your ads. You can earn money instead by referring them to the program themselves.

7. Don’t join the program simply to make money. It is NOT a get rich quick scheme. It will take time and effort to make a profit.

8. While the program is relatively user friendly don’t expect to get a complete grasp of how everything works as soon as you start. Expect to take a short while to get used to everything and to learn every facet of becoming a successful Adsense publisher go to www.adsense-income-exposed.com By following this list of dos and donts you are well on your way to becoming a successful Adsense publisher. One of the fundamentals of Adsense success is optimizing your web pages with the best top paying adsense keywords.

http://www.googleadsense-empire.com

http://www.google-atm-machine.com

need a website? want to be #1 on Google? visit our florida web design company homepage

Some Ways to Avoid Being Penalized or Banned From Google

admin    Google Optimization     Avoid, Banned, Being, From, google, Penalized, Some, Ways

Now days I see more and more people complaining that their website is dropping far in the SERPS or disappearing from Google. There can be many reasons for this. There a lot of misconceptions and speculation on why this may happen. From my experience and from others I will list a few reasons why this may happen to your website.

Some people who create new sites may see their website at the top of Google not long after it is indexed, the reason this may be is because Google likes to see new sites and normally will place them at the top to give them some exposure as a new site. But don’t get comfortable with your spot in the SERPS because it won’t last.

I also had some experience being penalized from the Google SERPS, I was on on the first page of Google for a week and suddenly my site was back on page 10. I was clueless to why this happened. At first I figured that I lost some quality backlinks. Weeks later after I tried to rebuild my site to the top I found that someone pointed out to me that I had hidden text on my website. And it was true, you can check this by hitting CTRL+A when viewing your site and you can sell all the text. This method is considered Black Hat SEO, and if you are caught you may be banned or penalized from Google.

Another reason you may be banned/penalized from Google is because you are linked to a bad Neighborhood and don’t even know it. One way to check if you are linked to a bad neighborhood is by using Google Webmaster Tools and viewing your outbound links. Go to Google Search and type in the URL of the site you are linked to, if nothing comes back that means the site was de-indexed from Google most likely they were banned. So try to remove that link immediately.

Keyword stuffing is another big one to get banned or penalized from Google. Sometime you may see an Image on a site and the ALT to the image is spammed with 20-30 keywords. That is considered keyword stuffing and you may be banned for this. Also try to avoid too many or unrelated keywords in your Meta tags. I’ve also seen some people try to place two title tags just to get more keywords into their site, that is wrong and should be avoided.

There are many other ways to avoid getting banned and/or penalized in Google. I will cover more in the upcoming days.

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Google Adsense: Keeping your Account From Being Disabled and Useful Books About the Program

admin    Google Optimization     About, Account, Adsense, Being, Books, Disabled, From, google, Keeping, Program, Useful

How Can I Make Sure That My Account Will Not Be Disabled?

Google Adsense Program Policies make no allowances for deceptive practices. The most important thing a publisher can do to ensure the integrity of their site is to be aware of what is happening on your site.

Google has made it abundantly clear not to click on your own ads or ask others to do so. But what about practices a publisher may not purposely carry out?

Make sure that ads associated with Google never appear in an unrequested pop-up. Don’t be talked into purchasing traffic for your site that may contain adware.

Respect the Google trademarks. Don’t use any Google trademarks or logos without their consent.

Don’t change the Adsense code. If you’re a pro at html, don’t assume you can add your own code. If you’re new to html, simply copy and paste the offered code. Don’t mess with it.

Provide a good environment for advertisers and a positive user experience. Don’t try to be deceptive in any way. Google’s rules may sound strict, but believe me, protecting the integrity of the Google Adsense Program is in your best interest as well as Google’s. After all, a positive, honest Google Adsense program means more money for all of us.

Useful Books About the Google Adsense Program For Users of All Stages

Do you need to buy a book to use Google Adsense? Not necessarily. Google’s support page has a wealth of information. But you might consider it if you want to read a personal account of an Adsense wizard such as Eric Giguere or say, if you want to learn more about HTML. ‘Who Let the Blogs Out: A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs by Biz Stone has a lot of information on blogging as well as information about Google Adsense. The following is just a few books you can find at amazon.com on the subject:

Make Easy Money with Google: Using the Adsense Advertising Program By Eric Giguere

The Google Adsense Handbook By Angus McLeod

Google Advertising Tools: Cashing in with Adsense, Adwords, and the Google APIs by Harold Davis

Top-Paying Google Adsense and Adwords Keywords for Pharmaceuticals (In Digital Format) [Download: Adobe Reader] By W. Frederick Zimmerman

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Growing Your Business with Google By Dave Taylor

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What is Google Aside From Being a Popular Search Engine?

admin    Google Optimization     Aside, Being, Engine, From, google, Popular, Search

“Don’t be evil” is the code of conduct the Google Company abides by, to quote its owners, “We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served ? as shareholders and in all other ways ? by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains.”

Google is a popular web based search engine which runs its business unlike any other. The starting page of Google. It is clean unobtrusive and sleek making download time faster. Google is preferred by a lot of users because of this. The term Google itself had a very quirky start it was a misspelling of the term googol referring to a number 1 followed by a hundred zeroes. For more help visit towww.google-atm-machine.com.What started off as quirk turned out to become reality The Google Company grew to ration proportions and is now estimated to have a billion dollar revenue. At the very start, Google was a brainchild of Larry Page then a PhD student at Stanford University who was doing a dissertation thesis on the World Wide Web and its mathematical structure. Because of a misspelling the term Google stuck and it was formally registered on September 15, 1997. On September 4, 2001, a patent describing part of Google’s ranking mechanism (PageRank) was granted. The patent named Lawrence Page as the inventor.

Google is also involved in philanthropic acts. One of their activities is the establishment of Google.org giving it a staggering fund of $1 billion. Climate change, global public health and global poverty are just among the issues the organization wants to help. The development of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that can attain 100 mpg is just one of its first projects.

Google has also worked with several corporations to enhance productivity and services. One such is its partnership with NASA wherein they work together on a variety of areas, including large-scale data management, and encouragement of the entrepreneurial space industry. Google has also partnered with Time Warner’s AOL unit for video searches and Fox to provide search and advertising on My Space and other News Corp. websites

Google has been known for its forward thinking and made some very smart acquisitions over the years. For more detail go to: www.instant-adsense-dollars.com.One such example is the acquisition of Blogger from Pyre Labs which is a web log publishing platform. This led to many of its premium features becoming free. The user friendly Google Docs and Spreadsheets is also a result of the company’s acquisition of Up startle, a company responsible for the online collaborative word processor whitely which was combined with Google Spreadsheets. Another of its popular buy outs is you tube which it purchased for $1.65 Billion dollars in 2006.

At the present Google now provides service for a range of tasks and them run several products to do so. Just some of their products are: Gail, for e-mail purposes, Picas a for photos, and Google maps which is a Mapping service that indexes streets and satellite imagery, providing driving directions and local business search.

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What are You Being Served With an Online Marketing Company

admin    Web Marketing     Being, company, marketing, Online, Served

 

The aim and goals about marketing online is to essentially reach out to your clients in the finest way possible, to sell be able to sell your product comfortably, and then to basically retain your clients.

With the advent of the Internet, there are so many unique benefits of marketing since so many methods of marketing have come up and there are options a plenty. Some of these benefits include low costs in distributing information and media to a global audience. What an Online Marketing Company does is that it essentially combines the creative promotional qualities of the Internet such as design and development with sales marketing and advertising.

There are so many benefits associated with an Online Marketing company. Depending on an online marketing company is necessary because they provide a platform where you can learn about products and purchase them as quickly as possible.

An Online Marketing Company provides a series of services if one is seriously interested. They can help you join networks and get you involved in Affiliate Marketing. An Online Marketing Company while providing you with marketing solutions sees to it that they are providing you with the best means of marketing your brand. The options they provide you with include E-Mail marketing services, Online Copywriting, website design and portal development, banner advertising, complete with a content management system along with search engine marketing services. All in all, you get a wonderful package to enable yourself to market and distribute your products to your target audience.

As an online marketing company gets you started with an affiliate marketing scheme, they also involve pay-per click advertising, and search engine optimization. A large and well established online marketing company is certainly more expensive but on the other hand are rather efficient.

You must ensure that your online marketing company is providing you with the best deal solution and are applying rigorous marketing strategies to make your company and products indeed a success.

 

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What Are The Burning Questions That You Have About Being A Gen Y Professional In A Social Media Age?

admin    Social Media Marketing     About, Being, Burning, Media, Professional, Questions, Social

I write a blog targeting Gen Y professionals and was curious to know what kinds of challenges you may have (if you also use Yahoo Answers) that you would like the answers to.
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