Category: seo

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Big Advertising News From Google and Yahoo

Google is brokering a deal with DirecTV for broadcast ads. (Techmeme)

Even while they work out the details of this one, it’s clear that Google has decided that advertising for the entire world is their goal. They’ve now got search, contextual, email (gmail), print, radio, cable and now satellite advertising working for them.

Future of AdvertisingI suppose at some point, we’ll all be wearing those futuristic v-neck jumpsuits, like everyone in the future seems to be wearing, and undoubtably they’ll be Googlesuits with embedded imaging on the torso running some sort of a ‘google wear’ property. Of course if this does happen I’ll expect my idea money in the form of a Google check (sans advertising please).

Yahoo Inks Deal With Viacom (Techmeme).

Danny Sullivan seems to think this one is just another deal that Yahoo had in the works that really has nothing to do with a Panama feather-in-the-cap, but the Yahoo! press release does mention Panama.

The only reason to mention Panama, frankly, feels like a means of giving investors some spin that Panama is making this possible. It’s not — as said, Yahoo’s had deals like this before pre-Panama.

Either way, good news for both companies. Kudos to the teams in charge…

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Search Engine Strategies Video Tips From GoogleWatch

I just read a very well-written video search tips list from Steve at GoogleWatch. Some of my favorites from his list for SEO and video:

2 Viral videos can help transfer traffic to your Web site indirectly.
The teaser strategy: Upload vids to YouTube, AOL Video etc and make sure to provide links to your sites in the video description.

3 All-in-one flash video players cause problems for search engines.
Even in a Web 2.0 world, combining HTML and Flash works best. Video pages on YouTube and PBS Frontline rank well because of all the contextual information in the page.

6 Put video pages off the root of your site
And don’t forget to repeat the word video or videos in your H1 tags and in the URLs.

7 List your videos in your site map
Don’t forget to put keywords in the titles.

8 Optimize anchor text in your links
Use primary and secondary keywords.

9 Tag files and individual scenes in videos if you can
Video players like click.tv let you add text and tags to segments of a video, and that text can be indexed.

11 Clean up your metadata
Some video creation tools publish too much bad metadata with your videos. Tools like Autodesk Cleaner, Sorensen Squeeze, an CastFire can help. (FYI, I’m not personally recommending these; I’ve never used them.)

Video is one of the things that most SEOs fear and this list is a nice checklist to remember. I will add that video for video’s sake is ridiculous. Most of the viral offerings are absolute junk. If you don’t have video that is either hilarious or shocking, or for some other reason noteworthy, don’t just upload crap hoping web viewers will somehow find something of value there.

However, if you’ve got a great video, optimize it (don’t forget a video RSS feed) and let it go. Just brand it well and ride it for all it’s worth!

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Elite Retreat Winner

Just saw that Wendy from eMoms has won the Elite Retreat contest.

Do you have any idea how cool this conference is? I have had my heart set on going ever since they announced it. There will only be 30 participants in the room. And we will be getting one on one consulting from the following amazing people:

Guy Kawasaki
Lee Dodd
Jeremy Shoemaker
Darren Rowse
Kris Jones
Neil Patel
Aaron Wall

You better take good notes because we’re all super-jealous that you get to go!

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Google Audio Ads Opens Up A Bit

The InsideAdWords blog today announced they are looking for more audio ads testers. Any of you who use AdWords may consider trying out this new ad medium.

In terms of feedback, the Audio Ads team has heard that beta testers like the simple and clean user interface and the targeting and reporting options. Beta testers also find the audio ad creation process easy and fast since it only takes them a few days to create their ads and launch their first campaigns (as compared to potentially weeks for traditional radio ads).

I’m not a big AdWords spender, so I’d not be of much use to them, but if you want you can sign up for the audio ads beta here.

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MyBlogLog CoAuthor Spam

UPDATE: This is fixed.

My husband, the pastor mind you, let me know that he was added as a coauthor of a community at MyBlogLog for a Porn site. After the initial chuckle, I began looking around to see what was going on and sure enough this seems to be a bonafide issue that just started ramping up this weekend.

My first notice was Saturday’s message from the hubby, but by Sunday the videoblogging list was talking about it and today it’s hit Techmeme.

Checking my email, I found not one but two different requests to be an coauthor at MyBlogLog. It’s making me guess that this is simply a new way people are trying to draw attention to their own sites, related to the MyBlogLog visit spamming reported by SoloSEO last month. (via Danny Sullivan)

It appears that spammers are always one step ahead of companies, but I’m sure MBL will figure this one out. Anyone else get this?

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Forum Users Are Vocal

When I am looking to get the word out for a client, I often look at forums for inspiration, because I think the real conversations (since the pre-1995 AOL explosion), have always been on bulletin boards and forums. Forum users are loud-mouthed and honest and you can get a great idea of these things:

1. What they think about your product/site.
2. Which competitors they are choosing over you.
3. Their favorite sources of info (they quote liberally).

When I am in affiliate mode, I read these forums”

Digital Point, WickedFire, Webmasterworld, Sitepoint

The ones with RSS support get my attention first. The others, only when I have extra time, which is never. Before I wrote this, of course, I had to check and make sure the ISN’s forums had RSS, but, whew, they do, per forum. 😉

RSS was the ‘one-issue’ that I made sure I had when I set up my problogwriters forum (moderator needed, btw). There are only a handful of ways to achieve RSS forums for free, and SMF seemed the smartest, due to it’s beautiful integration with Joomla. Security breaches aside (I was hacked twice), this is still the solution I recommend to people.

But back to the topic at hand, forum users are influencers. I’d bet if you named off the top early bloggers, every one of them were forum users first. These people talk, and their ideas created a following.

As well, don’t overlook the SEO aspect. Do a search on a product, most likely you’ll get a forum (or several) in the top 10 results. These predominantly textual sites, much like blogs, are SEOed well by nature. If your product is great, you WANT it mentioned organically in forums. This creates a testimonial that is organically well placed SEO-wise and since it’s off your site, it is seen as user gen trustworthy. Of course, I stress I would NEVER suggest spamming a forum. This will almost always come back to bite you in the ass. If your product/site is crap, stay out of forums. If it is good, someone from your group needs to be in offsite forums on a regular basis with your link in their signature.

Don’t forget to use forums in your marketing push. Bloggers always talk about community. You won’t ever build a blog community that is as strong as a forum, even though some are close (think problogger.net) or any number of mommy blogs. The next post will focus on bringing the successful parts of a forum to your blog.

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Digg’s Decision Isn’t News

I swear it seems that Kevin Rose could post about emptying his trash and Digg would get coverage. I have absolutely nothing against Digg, I’m a user myself, but I am blown away by the amount of press just removing the Top Diggers list has gotten. Here’s a Techmeme screenshot of last night’s post.

Digg on Techmeme

I knew when I saw it mentioned last night, it would gain alot of traffic, but how is this news? I think knee-jerk blog posts, simply to regurgitate news so that you can get on an aggregator or to rank well for the subject in Google is annoying. Just tip us to it, via del.icio.us or your shared Google Reader. Spare me the repeats…

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Links for 1/31/2007

Lee Odden has a nice synopsis on Shoemoney‘s podcast with Google Adsense’s Brian Axe. I have yet to be disappointed with a Shoemoney show.

Rubel points us to Prof Micheal Keren’s statement that implies that bloggers are lonely people. He doesn’t buy it and I second that. I’ve met more people through this blog than I can count.

The ShareASale blog makes mention of an affiliate marketing voting-type social venture, BUMPzee.

Technorati’s WTF got a WTF? from Problogger and Rubel. I hate to disagree, but I can actually see why Technorati might go in this direction, as it meshes so well with their ‘find the authority, find the resonance’ focus.

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Affiliate Summit – Arrived

We arrived in Vegas today, and are spending tonight getting to see some of sin city up close. Tomorrow will start the conference, and here’s what we’ll be covering then.

Exhibitors will be setting up their booths around 11am tomorrow. As well, conference attenders will begin to filter in and get their conference badges in the morning. But Sunday will really focus on networking. There are three separate events scheduled tomorrow that will hone your networking skills.

Affiliate Meet Market & Vendor Showcase
This is a time to meet affiliate vendors and take time assessing their product. When you have a question later, you’ll be able to connect with someone at the company that you’ve met. It’s always a good idea to make nice with the people who write your checks. If anyone knows how to sell their products well, it’s often them. Ask them for some winning strategies.

Ice Breakers Networking Session
This is a time more geared to meeting other people in the industry, in general. You’ll meet vendors, press, affiliates, search marketers and all sorts of other people who will be great additions to your rolodex. Don’t forget your business cards.

Affiliate Jam Session and Sing-a-Long
This long-running event is hosted by Share-A-Sale and always seems to get a good response. I wonder what I’ll be singing…?

Look for updates sometime tomorrow. Feel free to email me (robyn *at* sleepyblogger.com) if you have anyone specific I need to interview and I’ll make pains to do so.