Spend Less in AdWords with URL Testing

Advertisers place a great deal of focus on the title and description in their ad copy, but the url is often overlooked. The display url of your ad also has an effect on whether or not people are likely to click on your ad. If you use a display url that contributes to a high click through rate, you will in turn be paying a lower average cost per click and saving money. Testing display url's is a great way to increase your click through rate.

Both differing domain names and differing url extentions should be tested. The domain name you use should be very relevant to what you are advertising. If you advertise a wide range of products or services, it may be worthwhile to set up several domains, each with a relevant domain name to a specific product and use these in your advertisements.

You should also be testing different url extentions. For example if Ten Golden Rules has an ad group set up to advertise SEO Consulting, rather than just including the top level domain (www.TenGoldenRules.com) as the display url, variations should be tested, such as (www.TenGoldenRules.com/SEO-consulting).

Disintermediate - What the "Web" Was Created For

Yesterday, Mitch Joel's blog featured a video from Clay Shirky speaking at the TED conference on the phenomena of social media being used by everyday citizens for political purposes - often scooping or even eliminating the need for the media. Shirky cites recent efforts by social media users to validate results in countries experiencing voting conflict.

Our CEO, Jay Berkowitz, recently did a presentation which included this topic - refering to it as the opportunity to"disintermediate" - or cut out the middle man. Jay cites current online services that disintermediate, including companies using Twitter for customer service, and websites like HARO (Help A Reporter Out) which connects reporters with sources.

The process to disintermediate was a keystone of the overall design of the internet when the "www" was first formed. And the ability to do it via social media has been around since the beginning, too (consider forums, chat rooms, etc).

Today's social media interfaces provide a rich/multi-media approach to the same opportunity. It has taken the kind of widespread adoption of these tools prevalent today for this to become noticed by the world. With these mainstream tools that have unlimited global reach, small voices can now get the attention they desire.

The "middle man" better be looking behind him. He's rapidly becoming obsolete.

4 Tips for Marketing to Teens

• Do Not Use Slang: Teens are smarter than you think. They know the ads are coming from corporations, and more importantly, adults. When an adult uses slang, it’s almost as “uncool” as when their parents attempt to use slang. Therefore the ad, and the brand its associated with, becomes instantly “uncool”.

• Avoid Cliches: Teens are obsessed with defining themselves, and they like to see themselves as individuals. When they encounter a cliche ad, they feel generalized, and they see their individuality as being threatened or questioned. This can frighten or offend them, and in turn makes them less receptive to the ad’s message.

• Do Not Over-commercialize Fads: Many things that are “cool” to the teen world are only “cool” because they go against convention and aren’t associated with mass media. By making a fad commercially mainstream, it quickly loses its “cool” factor among those who pioneered it.

• Interactivity is Key: Teens have relatively short attention spans, but they love wasting time. Building a small Flash game or “Create Your Own” system for your website will hold teens’ attention and keep them on your website longer. This extended exposure better anchors your brand in their minds & associates it with entertainment.

A Movie About Facebook In Talks...

Facebook has come a long way from what it was back when it was only for college students. The popular social network has reach more than 200 million users and you know a social network is huge when you even find your parents signing up for a Facebook profile!

It is so big, that a movie based on the social network is in advanced talks with Columbia Pictures with director David Fincher, who directed popular movies, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Fight Club and The Game. The movie will tell the story of Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg as he created the social network from his Harvard dormroom to the popular network it is today.

I'm sure that this will be a highly anticipated film, as many Facebook users can relate to many things Facebook features such as poking, wall messages and 'liking' people's status messages. And of course, we all are probably wondering when a Twitter movie will be in the works!

HootSuite Twitter Toolbox

I recently joined Twitter and needed a way to manage my Twitter account and my status Tweets. I came across HootSuite, a web-based Twitter toolbox which lets you update your Twitter status, schedule Tweets for a later date, shorten URLs, track Tweet stats and manage multiple accounts right from your HootSuite Dashboard.

There are plenty of websites which allow you to shorten your URL for sites like Twitter, but HootSuite allows you to shorten URLs and update your status all in one step with the "Shrink It" feature. Simply paste your desired link and press the "Shrink It" button to transform your URL into a ow.ly short URL.

Best of all, you can track the daily clicks of your ow.ly URLs with the "View Tweet Stats" feature. When you click on "View Tweet Stats" HootSuite prepares a graphical representation of your daily clicks organized by date.

HootSuite also allows you to schedule your Tweets to be released at a later date and time. Perfect for being the first to wish someone a "Happy Birthday" right at midnight or for other time pertinent Tweets.

Veteran Twitter users will be happy to hear that you can still direct message (DM) using HootSuite. All you have to do is type a "d" or "dm" before the username of the person you are trying to reach and finish with your message.

FTC To Monitor Bloggers And Compensation For Their Posts

More and more customers are going online before making a purchase and some are just looking for price, but more have been looking for consumer reviews of products and services. Sometimes, these comments can be skewed in favor of the brand you are researching. Bloggers could be paid or compensated for each positive post about the brand you may be looking for.

According to the Associated Press, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reviewing practices to monitor these bloggers and the gifts they receive. The FTC is in talks to developed new guidelines to go after bloggers for any false claims or failure to disclose any conflicts of interest.

"If you walk into a department store, you know the (sales) clerk is a clerk," said Rich Cleland, assistant director in the FTC's division of advertising practices. "Online, if you think that somebody is providing you with independent advice and ... they have an economic motive for what they're saying, that's information a consumer should know."

These mandatory disclosures could change how reviews are perceived because users may never know that bloggers are being compensated for their posts.

Linkbuilding for SEO - Quality Over Quantity

A common misconception that can be a crutch to people running a search engine optimization campaign is that getting as many links as possible is the ultimate way to reach those high search results. Yes, having loads of backlinks will generally help improve organic rank, but the quality of those links is what will make the real difference. Several basic factors should be considered about a site when requesting a link from it:

• Relevance to your site
• Neighborhood it builds
• Backlinks to that site

Relevance - What keywords are you targeting? Are those keywords on the page you are requesting a backlink from? These are the questions you should be asking in order to build a quality link. The more relevant the page is to your site, the more a link from it will be worth to you.

Neighborhood - What other sites is the page linking to? Ideally, other links on the page from which you are requesting a link would be to sites exactly like yours. This will help put you in the right neighborhood as far as Google is concerned. If a page links to sites that resemble your site, Google will consider these sites to be related to yours and that is a good thing. If a page links to your site and a bunch of porn and gambling sites, Google will consider your site to be related to porn and gambling, which can have a dire effect on your results.

Backlinks to the page - How powerful is a page that you are looking for a link from? A page that has no backlinks is not near as powerful as a page that has hundreds of backlinks. If a page that has hundreds of backlinks links to your site, the power of those hundreds of links is also shared with you.

These are just a few basic things that should be observed when building links. More will be shared in later posts. Keep reading!

Why You Must Have a Google Local Business Listing NOW

A couple of weeks ago, Google announced it would be providing stats on searches and visits generated via the Google Maps and Google Local Business listings. This information was never available before, and although the current stats offered are basic, the value is immense.

Consider this - people searching local businesses are likely to be in a buying mindset. If a person searches for driving directions to your location, they're likely to be planning a visit soon. Online marketers know that many consumers "search online, but buy offline". Now, we can prove it.

The statistics it provides are rather basic and simple to understand:

• Top search queries people used to find your listing.
  
  
• How many people viewed the search engines' results pages where your listing appeared.
  
  
• How many people clicked through to view your Maps listing.
  
  
• How many people clicked through to get driving directions to your location.
  
  
• Zip codes of the searchers who requested driving directions to your location.
  
  
• How many people clicked through to your Web site.

But, YOU can't get any of this info unless you claim and enhance your Local Business Listing in Google.

By claiming your Local Business Listing, you also gain the advantage of assuring you can control the information displayed about your business (see example), rather than leaving that up to someone else. There is even a feature to offer a coupon built into the listing. And for search phrases that include geographic modifiers, you can appear at the top of the SERPs.

Google's step by step "wizard" and instructional video will allow you to claim and enhance your Local Business Listing and Google Maps listing - and get started today.

Using a Desktop App for Twitter to Monitor Brands

Most businesses are starting to participate in Twitter to promote their products or services. We all know we can get to Twitter by using, Twitter.com, but there are applications that are out there to make the Twitter experience even more easier.

Tweetdeck is a free desktop application that enables you to see all of the tweets of Twitter users you follow, replies to you and direct messages. That's the basic way of using it. But if you want to monitor specific keywords, a user or hashtags, you can track that too. Using Tweetdeck is a great way to monitor your brand, as well as your competitors. I think its really easy to use, and you can even send updates to your Facebook account as well.

Another desktop Twitter app that is also popular is Seesmic Desktop, which has similar features as Tweetdeck, but Seesmic Desktop allows you to manage more than one Twitter account, if you do have a personal Twitter account and a business or brand name Twitter account. It also allows you to organize your Twitter followers in groups and by Search query. Seesmic Desktop is also free to download and use.

iGoogle Faster and Smarter for Mobile Devices

Google recently released a new beta version of iGoogle for iPhones and Android powered phones such as the G1. Available in 38 languages, the new version supports tabs and third-party gadgets in an attempt to make mobile iGoogle faster and easier for users.

Some of the new features include the ability to rearrange your gadgets and the ability to keep your favorite gadgets open for the next time you visit. For feed-based gadgets, in-line display of articles is now available so you can read article summaries without leaving the page.

One of the drawbacks of the new mobile iGoogle is that it does not yet support flash.

Facebook Custom URLs: Like or disLike?

I recently heard about Facebook announcing that they will soon be allowing users to register usernames and custom URLs for profiles. This will come into effect on June 13th at 12:00 AM EST. This means you will be able to register Facebook.com/username for your profile.

I think this is a great idea, especially for SEO purposes, but for personal profiles it may pose privacy issues and the fact that people with common names such as mine, will be competing with trying to be the one and only (for example) Facebook.com/JaneDoe. There is also the idea that competing brands will take other brand names just to keep it out of their hands, which would eventually lead to complaints for Facebook to deal with.

So there are definitely pros and cons, but it really isn't that much different from Twitter or MySpace, which already offer custom vanity URLs.

What do you think? Like this or dislike? Will you be waiting at your computer on June 13 so you can make sure no one else can get your name?

Re-Tweets Brings Down Governments?

One of my favorite blogs (for personal entertainment) posted recently about a "re-tweet" of one of his comments that ended up completely unintentionally creating quite a stir in the British government - garnering international press coverage and causing embarrassing public apologies.

His post was funny and timely. In fact, it was hilarious. In other words, it was good. With all the "Twits" pleading with each other for "re-tweets", it just goes to show you that quality and relevance is still what counts.

SFIMA SoFIE Awards South Florida Interactive Excellence Awards May 2009

Check out the video at 3:30! Ten Golden Rules Internet Marketing Podcast Community wins a SOFIE!

Precision Results with Google Squared

Google has launched an experimental new search tool designed to present data in a meaningful way. Known as "Google Squared", this search function collects data into a spreadsheet format, allowing searchers to get exactly the information they are looking for on a single screen.

The usefulness of this tool comes about when someone is looking for several bits of information around a specific topic or item. Let's say for example we want to compare three different car models based on price, seating capacity, and features. Rather than researching several websites to find all of the pertinent information, we can "Square It" and create a spreadsheet that lists the three car models in the first column (each having its own row), the prices of each in another column, the seating capacity in a third column, and the features in a fourth column. This data will be collected from Google using multiple sources.

Having all of this information on a single screen should greatly reduce the time it takes us to compare different items. Give it a try.

Twitter Account Verification

Twitter is taking impersonation seriously and will be launching Verified Accounts. As it stands now, it violates their terms of service for someone to claim to be someone they are not and gives the company the power to revoke the account. First, Twitter will be testing public officials, agencies, athletes and well known individuals. They hope to extend this as time goes on. When an account is verified, there will be a logo that people can clearly see the person or company is who they say they are.

New To Social Media? 3 Sites To Get You Started

As someone who seeks out the most up to date trends and news on social media, I tend to feel a bit overwhelmed at the new sites that come up. I’m used to the sites that I use on a regular basis. If you’re just getting started on using social media, here are some sites to start with. I’m sure you will find them useful and enjoyable.

Facebook – It’s definitely a step up to MySpace, another popular social networking site. With Facebook you can connect with people you know already, and even people you may have lost touch with. Personally, I find it useful in keeping touch with friends who live all over the place, and without Facebook, I probably wouldn’t be able to connect with people I lost touch with. If you’re concerned about privacy, there are many ways to hide and limit people from seeing information you don’t want them to see.

Twitter – This site has gotten increasingly popular over the course of the year, mainly because more celebrities and news media outlets have been using it. I’ve found twitter to be useful in getting breaking news before the news outlets even get it, interesting information I wouldn’t know about if I wasn’t following certain Twitter users, keeping in touch with friends, and even meeting new ones. If you're new to Twitter, read The Beginner's Guide to Using Twitter for 10 steps on how to effectively use it.

LinkedIn – This site can be compared to your online resume, with a feature to network with other LinkedIn members online. At this website, you’re required to be more professional, but it could help you if you’re looking for a job or trying to find business connections.

The best thing about these sites are that they are all free, and you really can’t lose with them, except spending lots of time on them!

Despite Media Attention, Twitter Still Not Reaching Young Adults

Lately, it seems we can not turn on any news programming without hearing a mention of Twitter. As one would expect, most people would now be tweeting up a storm. This, however, is not the case for young adults aged 18-24. While a whopping 99% of this age group have social network profiles, only about 22% of them use Twitter.

Of the 18-24 year olds who do use Twitter, only 29% follow companies. The necessity to get this important demographic more involved in Twitter is obvious, as it is a huge opportunity. One way to get these young adults more involved would be to incorporate more applications into Twitter. A survey recently showed that 89% of social network users have installed apps on their profiles. Time to roll out the apps, Twitter.