Campaign Optimizer for Google Adwords

Google recently announced their free tool, Campaign Optimizer. Supposedly in just minutes the tool will automatically analyze your budget, keywords, landing pages and create a customized proposal for your campaign. Then apparently you just pick and choose the ones you want to implement.
I use the phrases supposedly and apparently, because I am unable to run the campaign optimizer tool from our MCC. My Client Center (MCC) is a tool for handling multiple Adwords Accounts, a tool specifically for SEMs, SEOS,and ABMs to manage and optimize multiple accounts. It would seem that Campaign Optimizer would be an effective and soon to be essential tool for all advertisers including those that use MCC.
My second issue with the tool is that once I logged into a couple accounts and tried to run the campaign optimzer, I received this error, "Your campaign exceeds the limit of keywords and ad groups that the Campaign Optimizer can accommodate at this time." The campaign is pretty big, but certainly not as big as some of the other campaigns that are being run on Adwords. Also, wouldn't big campaigns benefit from being optimized as well.
Once I was able to find a campaign that was small enough to optimize, the tool seemed to work fine enough, but that is for another blog post.

Kiva.org a cool way to help aspiring entrepreneurs

I recently came upon Kiva.org this is a website you can use to make a donation to a business person in an emerging nation.

You can give $200 (or more) to an aspiring entrepreneur who will pay the loan back when he/she makes the money back.

There is a description of each entrepreneur and the business venture, and you can fund all of the loan or a portion of it. Some countries included on the site are Mexico, Honduras, Azerbaijan, Samoa and Paraguay.

Don't Just Listen - Join the Conversation!

Don't know if you've noticed, but Ten Golden Rules has started a podcast. The 10 Golden Rules Internet Marketing Podcast is up to its 3rd broadcast now, and is really evolving.

But, I'm not going to just ask you to listen to the podcast; I'm asking you to respond as well. The true value of any good podcast is that it allows for the same interactive nature as the Internet. And although we like to know you've listened to our podcast, we're even more interested in your feedback and comments.

So, when you have a few minutes, check out our latest podcast using either iTunes or by clicking here. After you listen, please call in to 206-888-6606 and give us your comments. That way you can……Join the Conversation!

Being new to this arena, I’ve had to learn quickly about the newest ideas relating to the Internet. With a background in public relations, I was intrigued to hear about a new form of press release being put out. With the interactive nature of the Internet, there had to be a way for people to “touch” this information. When I say touch, I mean people are able to comment back, they can pass it on; not just read the information and be done.

That’s when I started to learn about Social Media Press Releases. I’ve listened to people such as Shannon Whitley and Brian Solis, and read blogs by Tom Foremski who are leading the charge in explaining SMPRs.

These press releases allow the reader to chat about the news on websites such as Technorati, Del.icio.us and Digg. People can also view videos right from the release or from links to YouTube. There are several models available to view by doing a search of Social Media Releases.

I like the idea of SMPRs because they get right to the point. Information is bulleted, links within the release point out where more information can be researched, and they are getting amazing pickup with Google Universal Search due to the inclusion of multimedia files.

As for writing the releases, you’re able to direct your web traffic where you want them to go. I can point out history trends, take you to past articles, or show you charts on why this news release is important.

I definitely see Social Media Releases getting more attention over the next year.

Microsoft Increases Search Use with Reward Programs

Microsoft recently saw a 36% increase in search query volume, due largely from their new initiative Live Search Club, a program launched in late May that's designed to engage and reward the users of Live Search. That surge in the search market has sparked criticism and other concerns from experts.

First, paying for search engine traffic isn't a new concept for Microsoft. In late 2005, Microsoft has run several promotions along these lines to draw in search engine querys. In 2006, MSNSearchandWin.com held out the promise of $1 million in prizes to lure searchers. More recently, Microsoft in January started Click4theCause, a search engine that makes donations to a refugee organization based on users' Live Search activity. In another, it offered a few large corporate customers discounts on Microsoft products based on employees' use of Live Search. While some critics may find Microsoft's ethics questionable, search query volume is search query volume. It doesn't matter the method the search engine uses to draw in their visitors.

Next critics pointed out that Microsoft's numbers could be artificially inflated by bots. "The reason their search engine is being hit so frequently is that people are running automated 'bot' programs to play the Live Search games for them," said Live Search Club user Jack Krause in an e-mail. "Microsoft is essentially being DDoSed by thousands of people hundreds of times per minute, but they are mistaking this rise in traffic for people actually using Live Search."

However, Microsoft is defending the numbers. Window Live's search business group, Brad Goldberg told Danny Sullivan in an interview that he believes the traffic comes from real people. Even if you take out the search query volume generated by the Live Search Club, Microsoft still experienced an increase in search use. According to Stephen DiMarco, Compete's CMO, without Live Search Club, Microsoft Live's U.S. search query volume rose from 8.4% to 9.1%, rather than 13.2%.

With the success of Microsoft's Live Search Club, I wouldn't be surprised to see other reward programs coming down the pike. Imagine...a future where the search engines pay the users for performing search engine queries. Interesting concept, isn't it?

Affiliate Summit Newbie

After attending my first Affiliate Summit in Miami last weeks, I had several questions racing through my mind.

- What makes a good affiliate?

- What makes a reputable publisher?

- How much money is actually made from these types of programs?

Being a “newbie” to these programs, I was surprised to learn the behind the scenes of the internet. To the everyday user, they surf, they purchase, and they get information and sometimes fill out requests forms to learn more. People are able to cash in on this business model and collect a commission for hosting a link or selling someone’s product or even information. It seemed so easy to just jump in and do this that I had to ask…what is the catch?

A key item that I was able to take away was to make sure you are offering products that you can relate to. If you are going to be an affiliate, and start attracting people to your site, don’t just throw up a link and expect people to click through. People want the right information that pertains to them. There were a few different models that I learned about to decide what to offer.

One, offer a niche product which may draw little traffic because it doesn’t apply to everyone, but offers the most rewards. And two, you can offer something that is open to anyone and everyone using the internet, but will pay the lowest commission due to competition.

Removing clutter from the internet

The internet in a simpler view is a huge storehouse of documents and information. However over time there has been a large buildup of files which are outdated or no longer useful. To help avoid this problem Google has implemented a new piece of code for WebPages, "Unavailable_after" meta tag which simply is a way to mark a page as no longer to be added to the net after a certain date. The advantages to such an inclusion would be web pages which could remove themselves from spider indexing when the information reaches a certain date making them self regulating.

However the truth is most webmasters will not use this when high demand keywords are in use. Most likely this will be used for smaller web pages and have little real impact.

Blog Tag - I'm It - One Thing I Learned at Affiliate Summit Miami

Blog tag...what an interesting concept. This game was started by Anik Singal in a post where he "tagged" 5 other bloggers to state the one thing they learned at Affiliate Summit Miami 2007. Then, Jay Berkowitz tagged me. This is one of the things I LOVE about the Internet - there are no rules - and we get to just make it all up as we go along. Inventing games (blog tag), our own cryptic online language (LOL, BRB, ROFL) and making up new words for the mainstream (wikis, vortals, blogs, etc). But, I guess for the purposes of our blog tag game, I should focus on what I learned at Affiliate Summit in Miami last week.

Truthfully, affiliate marketing is fairly new to me - and I had a lot to learn. The one really amazing thing I learned about was a web-based solution called Syntryx. I got a personal demo of this amazing website that seemingly brings every piece of analytics one could want together into a single tool. You can find top affiliates and get the most detailed information about their activity, you can see in-depth analytics of your competitors, and you can gain enough insight to assist you in making all your online business and marketing decisions.

They call it "disruptive technology", and I can see why. With this solution, there simply are no more secrets. It's truly mind-boggling, and even with a 30 minute personal demo, I still could not wrap my head around all the features.

Well, I guess it's time to "tag" some people to play the game, too. Are you ready to play?

Michael Gustman (borrowing Jay's idea, a hometeam tag)

Ze Frank (who very kindly bought me Starbucks before his keynote presentation)

Shari McConahay of Extreme Halloween Network

Tag, you're it!

Blog Tag...I'm It! -- 1 Thing I learned at Affiliate Summit

Using a particularly ingenious tactic he's calling blog tag, Anik Singal wrote a post on his blog titled 1 Thing I learned at Affiliate Summit and he challenged, actually he 'tagged' 5 other bloggers (Rosalind Gardner ,Jeremy Palmer ,Affiliate Summit co-organizer Shawn Collins tagged me, Heather Paulson ,Sam Harrelson ) to answer with 1 thing they learned at Affiliate Summit and tag 5 others.

In my 10 Golden Rules Internet Marketing Podcast I covered a bunch of things I learned at Affiliate Summit and I had a great interview with Jeremy Palmer www.Quityourdayjob.com.

To fulfill my tag obligation...Here's 1 thing I learned at Affiliate Summit. It was to relax and stay ahead of the game.

In his keynote presentation Ze Frank defined Acceleration Anxiety, the stress we all feel about the incredible rate of change and advancement in this space. A number of people asked me about this issue after my presentation Web 2.0 Discover Ten Critical Affiliate Strategies

I was starting to get a lot of anxiety myself. It seems like as soon as we figure out a new tool or tactic we have 5 competitors quickly doing the same thing.

Once Ze defined this, I took a step back and realized that the only way to stay ahead of the pack is to keep choosing the techniques that will differentiate our business and the solutions that will return ROI for our client's programs. Keep innovating, keep changing and don't stop to look back and feel stressed :) .

Tag...to these five bloggers, you're it!


Bobby Glazer

Michael Lang

Evelyn Grazini (A boomarang tag :) )

Margie Schneider (A home team tag)

Lorne Yaffe

Sometimes I REALLY hate the Internet...

If you knew me, you'd know how hard it was for me to type that title. Having been a "webbie" since 1994, I am one of those die-hard lovers of the Internet, making it a routine part of both my personal and professional life. I'm one of those people who says, "Social media? Web 2.0? Is this supposed to be something new? The internet has been providing a way for people to communicate, share ideas, and generate content since the early days. Doesn't anyone remember bulletin boards?!"

One of the things I generally love about the Internet is how easy it makes it for me to be informed. From daily news to industry information - I simply find I don't need another source. But, sometimes that incredible access to information can be a bad thing - at least, for me. For instance, the new Harry Potter book appears to have been leaked and "spoilers" about what happens are now nearly unavoidable online. While looking at a YouTube video to research the latest post by Jeremy Lockhorn: Making Video Advertising Accountable to Consumers, I stumbled upon a list of spoilers in a comment posted on a video - and the video was completely unrelated to Harry Potter!

The thing is, I don't want to read the spoilers. I want to enjoy the unfolding of the story as the author intended. So, I am now going to have to embark on a game of "trying not to find out" - and I can tell it's going to be difficult. Like I said, sometimes I really hate the Internet...

Google Preview

Google announced yesterday on its Inside Adwords Blog improvements to their Ad Preview tool. This tool had been around for the last year or so, but in order to use the full functionality of the tool you had to add your own bit of code to the search string, depending on where you were targeting. Now with this latest update it is much easier using the drop down menu at the top of the page to choose not only the Google Domain you want to search but also the display language and the specific local targeting that your campaign is targeting.
This is a great tool for every marketer to use to get realtime results to test your locally targeted ads to make sure they are showing up where they are supposed to be. Additionally, the searches and any clicks do not count towards your campaign so doing numerous searches for your ads will not negatively affect your campaign. The tool can be found here and is free for anyone to use.

June US Search Engine Rankings

This week comScore released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of activity across competitive search engines. In June 2007, Google still continues to lead the pack at 49.5%; however, that's down from 50.7% of last month. Yahoo continues to follow in Google's footsteps at 25.1%, also having a marginal loss from last month's 26.4%. Microsoft increased its popularity among US Internet users by rising 2.9% from last month, making its total share of the search market at 13.2%.

10 Golden Rules Internet Marketing Podcast Episode 3 Affiliate Summit Interview with Jeremy Palmer

Episode 3 of the 10 Golden Rules of Internet Marketing Podcast - The Affiliate Summit Miami Edition

Please share Comments and call-ins at 206-888-6606 or email us at podcast (at) 10goldenrules (dot) com

Show Summary:

- Live call in from Chris Fauteux on an iPhone.
- Interview held at Affiliate Summit with Jeremy Palmer from Quit Your Day Job and author of High Performance Affiliate Marketing - Learn how Jeremy quit his day job and made over $1 Million last year
- What’s Hot - Web 2.0 Discover the Ten Critical Strategies for Affiliate Marketing, from Ten Golden Rules CEO Jay Berkowitz’s Affiliate Summit presentation.

Key Learning from Affiliate Summit
- Shawn Collins and Missy Ward do a GREAT job, what a fantastic show!
- ‘Acceleration Anxiety’ Ze Frank
- Search vs. Search
- Google Quality Score
- www.Zappos.com has 800K skus


South Beach fun with Tom Arnold, Kerri Pollard, Kevin Joyce from Commission Junction.

Question from April Kandel, Florida State University
- What areas have the biggest growth potential and what types of jobs will be in high demand?
Answer: The future is interactive. The present is search. Start a blog or a web site and add some affiliate links or Google AdSense ads. Build a great MySpace page or Facebook site. What is Your Google Quotient? Can I find you if I Google you? Sarah Meyers Twitter note is a good example of someone building their personal brand: 'My video on Gizmodo has over 12,000 views in the past hour! Digg it please! 04:01 PM June 29, 2007 from web.'

- Audio interview from Affiliate Summit – Jim Crimmins Traders Accounting , Michael Lang, The Lang Report , Rob Glazer from Bobby's Best ands Evelyn Grazini from Affiliate Classroom

What’s Hot – Web 2.0 – Discover the Ten Critical Strategies for Affiliate Marketing.
1. User Generated Content (Click here to download the slides)
2. iPhone / Mobile Web
3. Open Architecture – Widgets www.Twittervision.com, www.TwitterMap.com, www.SEODigger.com
4. Long Tail eCommerce, Chris Anderson www.Amazon.com
5. Podcasting and Blogging Adam Curry , CC Chapman, Bryan Person, Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson
6. Sites built for Search Success www.Wikipedia.com, www.About.com Google Universal Search, Squidoo
7. List, List, List www.DailyCandy.com , www.LifeScript.com , www.Threadless.com
8. Free Google Tools Optimizer, Analytics,
9. User Defined News
10. Web 3.0 Second Life.com

Ten Golden Rules ‘Live From the Blog’, DJ www.servicewrap.net , Margie Nielsen/NetRatings, Kathryn Ten Tips for getting your blog listed in the search engines, Jeff PALM Graft

Interview with Super Affiliate Jeremy Palmer from www.QuitYourDayJob.com Author of High Performance Affiliate Marketing
1. Start a web site or a blog eLance , RentACoder , Guru , www.Blogger.com www.TypePad.com www.WordPress.com
2. Join an affiliate network and add offers and links, www.CJ.com, Linkshare, , www.Performics.com , Leads and CPA programs such as www.Azoogle.com
3. Send Traffic to the site – start with pay per click Google AdWords , Yahoo Search Marketing , MSN Ad Center
4. Analyze What traffic is converting and making money
5. Advanced tips – build a relationship to get inside information and exclusive offers, hot categories include software, catalogs and web only offers.

Music Credits:
TGR Top Ten Song of the Week butta verses “Jones in My Bones”
(Adam Curry from Daily Source Code predicted this would be a big summer hit.
Ten Golden Rules Theme Music ‘Rain’ courtesy of DJ Sean Miller and Carey Britt
SilverPop Music Background - Zerobae 'Summer Pop Radio Shine'

And please send us recorded audio comments, or use our call in line to send audio questions and comments to 206-888-6606 or email podcast (at) 10goldenrules (dot) com

Make Your Blog Smarter with Web 2.0 Widgets

For those of you not familiar with the term "widget". A widget is an interactive, mini web application that you can put into your blog to give your readers more information, functionality and even some fun. Examples of widgets are:

• Informational Widgets - add stock tips or the latest tech news to your blog.
• Functional Widgets - add a calendar or syndication capabilities so readers can sign up for your blog.
• Fun Widgets - let your readers play an arcade classic or answer trivia questions.

So where can you get some of these Web 2.0 widgets?

Widgetbox.com is a directory with over 290 million of web widgets to download. Its preview feature allows visitors to view the Web 2.0 widget before downloading it. The widget search function is very user friendly. And Widgetbox.com even offers an FAQ section to help new bloggers figure out how to upload Web 2.0 widgets to their blogs.

So what are you waiting for? Go out there and make your blog smarter!

The Value of Quality Content

During the time I have spent link building, I have come across many interesting concepts to help build website value. The one I have found to be most important, and yet seems to come hardest, is the value of quality content.

What this means is if I have a site which is keyword researched and is linked correctly and I am doing all I can to get interest, then why am I not gaining any Page Rank? Without content to keep people coming to your site you have an empty shell. A visit of one time will not help with your flow of traffic and that is what helps your page rank.

The simplest answer may be, is that your page is getting people to it, but is not keeping the attention of those coming to your site. People look to things which hold a vested interest to them. Your site drew people too it. Your job is to keep them interested. Try to make the experience smooth and interesting so even the thought of hitting a back button is never considered. Concentrate on finding content to help gain more of the public eye. Keep in mind at all times the message your trying to send out and not let it get muddled. If the message is clear then you should not have as difficult a time finding the right subject material for your site as you would for simply paying more money for what could be done with some simple site content research. Eye candy is nice and helpful for immediate page clicks, but will not keep having them go through your site. At times it is not what you say, but how you say it.

Think to yourself when you are looking for something what kept you on a page and what kept you right on going. Chances are good that what drew you to someone else can very easily work for you as well.

A final thought to consider is a properly balanced site will draw more attention then spending on simply a huge ad campaign.

Website Visitor Metrics - How Do You Rank?

Nielsen/NetRatings announced today that it would change its top metric from the traditional page views and unique visitors to a new system calculating rankings based on the amount of time a visitor spends on a site and number of sessions.

According to Nielsen, it's a response to shifts in visitor activity due to elements like video and technology like Ajax (which displays fresh content without a page refresh) resulting in more time spent on pages with fewer overall page views. Both of these increasingly popular technologies were already creating a skew for the page views metric.

With the new system, sites like AOL and Yahoo – who have users spending millions of hours each day using their instant messaging software – get the highest rankings. I would have expected to see YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook and other social media websites to be top. I'd say instant messaging is causing a new skew and Nielsen's new metric is just as inherently incorrect as before. I do agree that amount of time spent on a site is an important metric, but I think this switch might be premature.

WOW! Check out Lifestreaming living in front of a camera 24/7

I just stumbled upon Justin.tv through a link on Twitter.

What a wild concept, a bunch of people are life streaming, filming their lives 24/7 with web cameras.

Earlier in the day, Justin was streaming live from E3 he just met iJustine, one of the streamers just met up with Justin in LA.

In this world of reality tv what a great business, I'm sure Justin will cash in. Kudos to him!

Ten Golden Rules CEO Jay Berkowitz Interviewed at Affilaite Summit

Jay Berkowitz, CEO of Ten Golden Rules was interviewed by Andrea Diebold on WebProNews.com following his presentation at Affiliate Summit Miami, July 9th , 2007.

He talks about Affiliate Marketing Strategies User Generated Content, Widgets, Open Architecture, Second Life 'Web 3.0', his favorite Podcasts: Mitch Joel's Six Pixels of Separation, Joe Jaffe's Across the Sound and CC Chapman's Managing the Gray, and the new 10 Golden Rules Internet Marketing Podcast.

Episode 2 of the 10 Golden Rules of Internet Marketing Podcast - Win an iPhone at Affiliate Summit

10 Golden Rules of internet Marketing Podcast Episode 2 - The Win a Free iPhone at Affiliate Summit Edition.
Please share Comments and call ins 206-888-6606 or email podcast (at) 10goldenrules (dot) com

Thank you to our new sponsor Silverpop email solutions.

Welcome to our second episode. What’s Hot The Top Internet and Marketing Tradeshows, Live Blogging: Google Universal Search, How to get your blog picked up in Search Engines, How to videos, TREO captcha, Search Engine Strategies and Ad-Tech reviews, two job openings.

Our first call-in from www.JohnLawlor.com, email from Ron Caporale the CEO of www.LifeScript.com

Reviews from Search Engine Strategies Toronto and Miami Latino, Our panel at Ad-Tech Miami titled Blogs, Podcasts and Vidcasts, presentation at Affiliate Summit 2007 East July 9th in Miami “ Web 2.0 - The Ten Critical Strategies for Affiliate Marketing”

We posted two jobs at http://www.tengoldenrules.com/jobs.htm Account Executive - New Media, Copywriter

Review of Search Engine Strategies Latino in Miami

Sarah Carberry, Google's Multicultural Development Manager, Google Trends
track keyword searches over time with searches by region
Larry Mersman Vice President at Trellian, excellent software including Keyword Discovery

Review of Ad-Tech Miami, Alberto Padilla, News Anchor, CNN interviewed did with Shawn Gold, VP with MySpace.com.
Ray Costa and Steve Kempisty Flatiron Media, Chris Graham From Syntryx, they have a web traffic product that compares to Hitwise, Pete Blackshaw from Buzz Metrics
Marc Phillips from Search Forecast, Gabriel Querecuto – an analyst with Santiago Solutions Group, Michelle Azan is a VP with Terra Network, Dave Gwozdz is with PHORM, Manny Miravete Director with AOL Multicultural in NYC

I had the pleasure of moderating a panel called Blogs, Podcasts and Vidcasts including Julio Vaca, is a Senior Product Manager at PodZinger, who has just changed their name to Everyzing. Jesus Hoyos, the Managing Partner, of Solvis Consulting, he has a Spanish blog on CRM in Latin America , Diego Naranjo, a Director with Latin3 has a great blog at www.miamiadguy.com

Email from A. Silkin “why is your blog on blogger and not on your website 10GoldenRules.com?

Another Question: Why do podcasts sound like a radio show, if new media podcasters like 10 Golden Rules, Joe Jaffe’s Across the Sound, Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation and Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code were all into new media why were we essentially doing radio on iTunes?

What’s Hot – The top Internet and Marketing Trade Shows
eBay live, Boston, Web 2.0 Summit 2007, The American Marketing Association mPlanet show, the DMA Annual Conference, Search Engine Strategies, Ad-Tech, Affiliate Summit

Ten Golden Rules ‘Live From the Blog’, Margie Google Universal Search, Kathryn Ten Tips for getting your blog listed in the search engines, Jeff TREO and Cingular curse word in the Captcha, Suzannah ‘How To’ Video Websites

Ten List - The final five Golden Rules of Internet Marketing.
Golden Rule #6 Remember the four P’s
Golden Rule #7, Trust is Golden
Rule #8 – Use the right tactic
Golden Rule #9 The Best Never Rest
And Golden Rule # 10 Lead the trends


Music Credits:
TGR Top Ten Song of the Week NoCo 'Aloud To Me'
NoCo is a hot alternative rock trio from Silver Spring, Maryland
Ten Golden Rules Theme Music ‘Rain’ courtesy of DJ Sean Miller and Carey Britt
SilverPop Music Background - Zerobae 'Summer Pop Radio Shine'
http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=1c39269119d8744eaf250059932deefa
What’s Hot Intro So Hot NoCo, Thats Hot thebrew

And please send us recorded audio comments, or use our call in line to send audio questions and comments to 206-888-6606 or email podcast (at) 10goldenrules (dot) com

Meet the iPhone Winner from Affiliate Summit East 2007!

Mike Boudet, of GoTrusted, just figured he'd drop his business card in the box and see what happens. Just like anyone else, he never thought he'd win. But, he did!

At 3:30 on Tuesday, July 11, our booth at the Affiliate Summit East got very crowded as many gathered to watch our drawing for the free iPhone. As Jay Berkowitz, CEO of Ten Golden Rules, reached in to draw the winning entry - there was definitely some anticipation and excitement in the air. Since Mike was not present for the drawing, Jay immediately called and left a message to let him know he was our winner. We got in touch later and were able to make the presentation before the show ended.

Congratulations to Mike. The iPhone was definitely in demand. Not sure how we're going to top that at the next show - but we'll try!

Google "Don't Be Evil"

As everyone has probably heard or read before, Google's unofficial Corporate Motto is "Don't Be Evil." Over the last few years Google has been accused of many things including Censorship, Copyright Infringement, Invasion of Privacy, and many others.
Well now you can add Breaking & Entry and Grand Theft to the list. Over the weekend in Colorado Springs, two individuals broke into an indoor Amusement Park and tried to break into the safes on the premises. Unfortunately these two individuals after about 45 minutes could not open the safe, so the brains of the operation did what any of us would do in a situation when they did not know how to solve their problem, they went online to Google and did a search for "how to crack a safe" or a similar search and within a couple minutes left the premises with over $12,000 in cash, a laptop and a Sony Playstation.
Now a simple search like these individuals did brought up many results such as this site and this one in just a few seconds. But why wouldn't someone conduct this search or this one. I jokingly stated that Google is Guilty, but aren't they technically an accessory or at least aiding and abetting and shouldn't their Corporate Motto lead them to police their search results a little better?

Affiliate Summit East 2007 Update

Well, day one is over for the Affiliate Summit 2007 in Miami, Florida. We had a very productive day, starting with booth set up, and Starbucks beverages with keynote speaker, Ze Frank, who took time out of a very busy week of consulting to present. His speech was a great start to the day, and although he was kind enough to come by our booth several times, we missed our opportunity to interview him for our podcast. Jay's presentation went extraordinarily well, with people sitting in the aisles to attend his lecture on Web 2.0 and its potential for Affiliates. All eyes and ears were on Jay as he talked about GUS, Twitter, Second Life and more. We ended the evening with dinner at Barton Gs on South Beach where we saw New York Giants, Jeremy Shockey (pictured here with me) . For all you Giants fans, he promised a better year, and noted he'd even visited a "Voo Doo" practitioner to get prepared for the new season. Dinner was followed by a party at Mansion, sponsored by Moniker where we all danced and enjoyed ourselves till the wee hours. Tomorrow, it's back to the booth. Stop by and say hi if you're there.

Ten Golden Rules at Affiliate Summit...Arrr - The Pirate is back

Ten Golden Rules is at the busy Affiliate Summit 2007 East in Miami. Missy Ward and Shawn Collins have done an outstanding job and must be commended!

The Extreme Halloween Pirate is back, see their offers on Commission Junction and come by booth 78 if you're at the show.

Live Earth coming in clearly from Australia...please review Dr. Tim Ball's Take

Watching Live Earth from Australia on MSN, totally cool. The pictures are really clear, streaming audio hasn't had a blip in over 20 minutes.

I fondly remember Live Aid with the satellite feed breaking up (especially U2's breakthrough moment with playing 'One'), and Live Eight last year with so-so video, it looks like 'live' has arrived!









Phillips had a well placed ad for their earth friendly light bulbs and Chevy is sponsoring the 'free' video feed - thanks Detroit!




I believe in recycling, reducing and re-using. I don't like big oil and its political influence. But before I place myself too far in the "The Earth is Melting" crowd, I'd like you to consider the theories of Dr. Tim Ball "The Myth of Global Warming?", who does not think that Global Warming is nearly as serious as Al Gore (who invented this very internet I that gives me this soapbox :) ). Easily the best professor I have ever had Dr. Ball used to engage us with a world weather introduction to each class that was as entertaining as Johnny Carson or Jay Leno. If Dr. Ball is skeptical , this deserves significant air time. He is brilliant and what he says is, in my experience and opinion unquestionably worthy. From his interview:

"...all predictions of future warming are based on computer models that don't work. They can't forecast one year from now so how would they be able to forecast 100 years from now? In addition, all forecasts made by the models to date have been wrong. The other major weakness the assumption that an increase in CO2 from human activity will result in warming. The evidence shows that CO2 does not correlate with temperature change. Even more damaging is that the 420,000 year ice core record shows the complete opposite with temperature changing before CO2 not as hypothesized. The models all assume a doubling of CO2 will occur. They are all programmed to have temperature increase if CO2 increases and they are unable to include feedback mechanisms. For example, an increase in temperature will result in an increase in evaporation that will cause an increase in cloud that will block the sun and cause cooling"

"There has been no increase in the number of 4 and 5 category hurricanes. In fact there has been a decrease with the most numbers occurring the 1940s. Similarly there has been no increase in the maximum wind speeds by which hurricane categories are determined. The worst hurricane in terms of loss of life was in 1900 in Galveston when 6000 people died. This, like Katrina was mostly due to dike failure."

"Gore's movie is pure propaganda someone said to me it is the Da Vinci code of climate change. If you can arrange it I would like an hour on Larry King alone to go through each part of Gore's movie and show the errors and distortion. Of course, it won't happen."

Sexual Revolution in SEO

SEO has primarily been a male driven industry, however due to a study done by www.servicewrap.net, during a recent internal audit of their clients, there was a surprising discovery. They found a 45% increase in females in the industry and only a 10% increase among males.

In the past most users had been male, with an average 5% increase per year and 2% increase among females.

In the beginning of the Internet itself, a "black rimmed glasses techno geek" persona prevailed. This hardware driven world, with no room for women, has given way to business women who have grown into the field and are now taking a commanding position in this market.

As an interesting side note, it was also found that woman are using more dynamic approaches to SEO, while men stick with the general patterns - even though the Internet is inundated with these approaches.

Protecting Your Online Brand (Part 2)

A couple weeks back I blogged about my experience on the mypalm.com site after my palm treo purchase. As you may recall, the Captcha showed an inappropriate word, and I wanted to make sure that brands are aware of their image, whether it deals with issues under their control or in dealing with vendors/partners/other third parties.
As an Internet Marketing Consultant, I thought Palm should be aware of my blog post so I did a little research online and in about 10 minutes I found the email address of the VP of Marketing, Brodie Keast. I sent him an email with a quick introduction and a link to the blog post. Within 2 hrs I received a call from their VP of Corporate Communications (I unfortunately did not catch the gentleman's name). He let me know that Brodie had forwarded the email to him and he wanted to find out what had happened, that he appreciated the screenshot of proof, and that Palm was dealing with this issue promptly with their supplier and assured me that they were taking action that this would not happen again.
He and I had a great conversation, he had said that he had never heard of this happening and it was never thought of in setting up the Captcha. He had heard of many unique things happening online, but this was one of the more random unique events. He appreciated me bringing this to their attention so that they could address the issue. He then asked if I needed anything else, I joked said a new phone would be fine. He laughed and said he would see what he could do.
A couple days ago, I received a package from Palm, in it contained a tshirt, a water bottle, a sackpack and a rubber ball. I was pleasantly surprised to see this package and it is good to know that some companies still care about the customer experience.

Two Internet Marketing Jobs in our Florida Office

We are looking for two new team members at Ten Golden Rules. We are an internet marketing consultant and internet advertising agency based in Boca Raton, Florida. If you are a wiz at New Media or Web 2.0 or you're a web or search engine copywriter we'd like to meet you. Please see our Florida internet marketing Jobs .


ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE - NEW MEDIA

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

* Client management
* Develop concepts for Web 2.0 projects (e.g.: Wikis, videos for YouTube, MySpace pages, stories for Digg, Podcasts, SecondLife type sites)
* Press Release Development and Media Outreach
* Manage Affiliate Programs
* Develop banner ads and landing pages
* Research and analyze keyword phrases.
* Evaluate and execute online media buys and plans

REQUIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE:

* The qualified candidate will have 2-5 years of online advertising/marketing experience, including familiarity with the following: Web 2.0, search engine optimization, pay-per-click management, online media management/media buying, affiliate marketing and banner and text link advertising, online creative development, including rich media, promotions and project management

COPYWRITER / ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

* Client management (Client meetings, status reports, project planning, program performance analysis and reporting)
* Copywriting for web sites and press releases
* Media outreach (media list development and media contact)
* Manage affiliate programs
* Research and analyze keyword phrases
* Develop banner ads and landing pages
* Evaluate and execute online media buys and plans

REQUIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE:

* The qualified candidate will have 2-5 years of online advertising/marketing experience, including copywriting for the internet and familiarity with the following: search engine optimization, public relations, social media marketing (e.g.: Wikis, videos for YouTube, MySpace pages, stories for Digg, Podcasts, SecondLife type sites), pay-per-click management, online media management/media buying, affiliate marketing, banner and text link advertising, online creative development, including rich media, promotions and project management

To apply, please send resume to:

Margie Schneider
VP Operations
Margie (at) TenGoldenRules (dot) com

Search Engine Optimization Strategies for Protecting Your Brand

Protecting your brand isn't easy on the Internet. Disgruntled employees can create blogs that vilify your company name. Angry consumers can complain on forums, opinion boards and other online social communities. Negative press can creep up in the search engine rankings and out rank your site for its brand and products. Sometimes it seems like no brand is immune from their online critics.

For example, in the current Top 10 Google rankings for "best buy," there are two results that the corporate executives at Best Buy might raise an eye to. Best Buy at the Improv Everywhere listing talks about a prank that the New York group mischief makers pulled on a local Best Buy Store. Die.net features a customer's recounting of how he was "harassed" by employees at Best Buy.

Is there anything you can do to protect your online brand?

Yes! There are plenty of ways to protect your online brand using a little bit of search engine optimization know-how and internet marketing strategy. First, make sure you know what others are saying about your company. Sign up for Google Alerts and get the latest news about your company sent to your email. Second, use a variety of search engine optimization tactics to protect your online brand:

1. Optimize your own website.
2. Spread positive news with online press releases.
3. Create a blog and post interesting news on your industry. (Just make sure to moderate comments to keep spammers from posting on your company blog.)
4. Create a forum to answer customer questions about your products.
5. Write helpful industry tips and syndicate the content.

And don't stop there. Join an affiliate program and get some of the best search engine marketers promoting your brand. Offer special "internet only" coupons that can be spread across the coupon sites on the World Wide Web.

Lastly, and really this shouldn't need to be said, creating a positive online brand starts at your company and its website. Make sure it's user-friendly, and address customer complaints in a timely matter. The above search engine optimization tactics work at keeping the extremists at bay but if your brand really deserves a negative image, then take some time to listen to what your online critics have to say and make some changes in your organization.