You are here: Home / Blog

Google Offers Goes Live, First Portland Offer Arrives

What isn’t Google into these days?  The answer to that question is not much.  If there is a great idea that pops up on the Internet, it’s a safe bet that Google is going to notice and then try to monetize it.  After a failed attempt to purchase Groupon, Google instituted their own version.  And it appears now that it is going live in Portland.  With all of the customer data that Google retains it is no surprise that they will leverage it yet again to attain sales and yet more of your information.



Continue reading “Google Offers Goes Live, First Portland Offer Arrives” »

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , ,

Pew: Twitter Usage Grows to 13% With African-Americans Leading Adoption

Our clients often ask for a validation of social media adoption and marketing usefulness. We have our statistics that make for a great case and we always implore that a business, especially SMBs, do not ignore the importance of social media and the web 2.0 movement.  To add to the statistical overload in our business, Pew released the latest numbers in the use rate of Twitter.  What we found most interesting was the adoption by the minority populations, but more surprisingly, the 30-49 age bracket.

 

Continue reading “Pew: Twitter Usage Grows to 13% With African-Americans Leading Adoption” »

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , ,

4 Facebook Marketing Tactics You Might Not Know About

We’ve posted a few things here about social media and all of it is to help our customers and followers to leverage the social media explosion.  Very often we hear “I’ve got a Facebook and Twitter dealie, now what?”  What follows seems to be redundant and obvious, but to them it isn’t.  Social Media is social.  I know that is redundant in of itself, but SMBs need to come around and realize how to use these tools as they would a mailer, a sidewalk sign, etc.

The great folks over at SEOMoz posted this article pointing out 4 (out of many) marketing tactics a SMB can use.  The one that we found interesting was the Facebook/Google Local Listings correlation.  We’ve been noticing it for our SEO and Social Media customers and Jennita’s post does a great job exposing this feature.

Continue reading “4 Facebook Marketing Tactics You Might Not Know About” »

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , ,

YouTube “First Watch” Creates Massive Reach for Video Ads

Google is the king of creating monetizing enterprises in the digital realm.  Recently they added features to target map listings (Google Boost) and forever they have tinkered with delivering advertisements through their YouTube acquisition.  As detailed below, Greg Sterling lays out the new strategy that is being researched with a good ROI.  They’re target it seems is not UGC, user generated content, so it doesn’t appear that we need to fear watching an advertisement when trying to view the latest viral craze.

Continue reading “YouTube “First Watch” Creates Massive Reach for Video Ads” »

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , ,

“Wasting” Marketing Time in Facebook

It’s something that has us troubled from time to time, but ultimately there is an obvious value to Facebook for SMBs.  I had a conversation not to long ago with a company that admitted they paid for inflation of “Likes” on their Facebook business page.  When asked why, he merely said that a lot of likes was what everyone needed.  True.  But false.

Facebook is a social network, and just like a true social gathering you more than likely wouldn’t be caught dead paying for people to show up.  With your company you have to create a strategy, much like anything else, and then implement, evaluate, analyze, adjust and repeat.  Facebook is a conduit for conversation with existing and potential clients, however not the best sales tool.  If you have something to say, advise, etc then it’s great; however trying to sell with every post will be ignored.  A good example is those who stand at outside the grocery store trying to solicit you.  Most people ignore them, go out the back door or wait for someone else to get trapped and then shoot out the door.  Below is an article discussing this very simple concept, yet one that is usually missed.

Continue reading ““Wasting” Marketing Time in Facebook” »

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , ,

Google’s $64 Billion Economic Impact

The impact of Google and its available tools are too undeniable of a valuable asset to the small and medium sized businesses. From Google Adwords and Google AdSenese to Google Analytics and now Google Boost, a business can determine its market space on the Internet, track conversions and give to layman sophisticated tools to gain market share and increase revenue. This sounds all well and fine for most businesses, and from our point of view at Denver Media it is completely accurate. However, where is the quantifiable proof these tools have that big of an impact? From our experience running SEO and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) campaigns, it is unquestionable and easy to see.  But most business owners are either in the dark or in denial. If one is in the dark, then we hope to help turn on the lights and show you around a bit, however if one is in denial then the earth must still be flat.

Google released it’s latest numbers showing its impact of the U.S. economy, and large increase in 2010 over 2009. Below is an article from our friends over at Search Engine Land.

 

May 16, 2011 at 4:06pm ET by Pamela Parker

In conjunction with National Small Business Week, Google is trying to burnish its image by touting the economic impact that its programs, including AdWords and AdSense, have had on the U.S. economy. According to the company, Google provided $64 billion in economic activity for American businesses and non-profits in 2010, 18% greater than the 2009 number.

The company says nearly 1 million U.S. businesses and non-profits earned income from Google tools in 2010. For every $1 a business spends on Google AdWords, the company claims, they receive an average of $8 in profit through business generated via both Google Search and AdWords. The numbers are based on a complex formula developed by Google’s chief economist Hal Varian. It starts with the assumption that every business gets $2 in business for every $1 spent on AdWords — an assumption based on data across a large pool of advertisers. Then it assumes that, for every ad click, advertisers get 5 clicks on their organic search results. More methodology from Google here.

Read Entire Article at: Search Engine Land

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Search Engine Rankings – April 2011


From our partners over at OnlineMarketingDenver.net the article below outlines the new comScore ratings from last month and the changes in search engine market shares.

Read their blog at: Online Marketing Denver

comScore recently released April 2011search engine rankings report.  This report shows overall market share / usage of the top search engines.

Here is the recap in order of usage:

  • Google search market share fell to 65.4 percent, a loss of .3 percent in March.
  • Yahoo grew to 15.9 percent, a gain of .2 percent.
  • Bing grew to 14.1 percent, a gain of .2 percent.
  • Ask fell to 3 percent, a loss of .1 percent.
  • AOL fell to 1.5 percent, a loss of .1 percent.

The graph below shows search query’s in millions.  Americans conducted more than 18.0 billion total core search queries in April. Google Sites ranked first with 11.6 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.2 billion and Microsoft Sites with 2.5 billion according to comScore.

comScore April Search engine marketing search mapSource: comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011

Most of the customers I consult with have been content running on the Google network alone, however the data above shows that limiting yourself to one network is only allowing you 65.4% coverage.  This means that they are missing 34% of potential customers/clients/or patients.  I always recommend we run all tier one search engines and allocate the budget appropriately, this way we have the broadest reach and will be available to 98% of the searches conducted.

With this in mind, Chris has the ability to provide accurate data as it relates to the conversions (CBO – Conversion based optimization) that come from each search engine independently, and he is able to move money between engines providing less impact to those that have better results.  Often times those customers that were just running on Google get far better results from other engines.   This is just one more reason that running your program with the largest provider of local internet search to SMB’s in the United States just makes sense. Chris can provide you solutions that small boutiques can’t touch.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Do Mobile Blog Templates Have Enough Substance For SEO?

We’ve been toiling around this same issue with some of our customers and found this article to be a great little explanation of the mobile templates that are now available.

 

As more online activity shifts to mobile devices, bloggers are becoming aware of the benefits of having mobile versions of their websites. As luck would have it, the developers of major blogging platforms recognized this, and stepped-in to provide default solutions for those wanting to serve-up content to a mobile audience without a lot of investment.

Let’s take a look at three of the major players.

Mobile Blogging Platforms SEO

Read more of this article at Search Engine Land

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , ,

Google Updates AdWords

Google announced some changes to their algorithm that updates how Adwords and the Keyword Generator operate.  One of the apparent bonuses is that marketers can now target Tablets separately from other campaigns.

Below is a post from Search Engine Land detailing out some of the changes:

 

Google AdWords Can Now Target Tablets Separately

by Greg Sterling

Just as Google began to allow users to separate their AdWords campaigns on smartphones from their PC campaigns, the company is now letting advertisers separately target tablets. It becomes another check box on the AdWords “networks and devices” screen.

Here’s what Google said in its blog post:

In the next couple of weeks, the “Networks and Devices” section of your Settings tab within your AdWords account will include a new targeting option titled “Tablets with full browsers.” While you’ve been able to specifically target Apple iPad devices in the past, the new capability will enable you to easily target your ads to the entire tablet device category. In addition, you’ll be able to select more precisely the types of devices and operating systems on which your AdWords ads will show. For example, to display your ads on the Apple iPad, you’ll be able to choose “Tablets with full browsers” as your device targeting setting and “iOS” as your operating system setting. Tablet targeting will be available initially for Apple devices only, but we’ll expand ad serving to other specific devices in the near future.

Read the entire article at: Search Engine Land

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , ,

Ecommerce Without Cookies?

We stumbled upon this article about a start-up innovating new ways for online retailers to interact and tailor products to their customers when the inevitable happens: cookies and tracking are either outlawed or the consumer uses the tracking blocker features in the newest browsers.  In short, a cookie is a piece of code dropped onto a users computer that gathers and tracks certain data points.  Most expire within one to thirty days.  We notice them more now when you log into Facebook (“remember me” option) or Google.  In a lot of instances it is awesome for the site to remember us and therefor not have to type in passwords all of the time, or it remembers what we ordered last.  However, there is a big push for privacy on the Internet; law makers and browser developers are in-step with each other to crumble the cookies.  In the article below Mashable introduces a new company – Buyosphere – and how they have come up with a new Web 2.0 (or is it 3.0?) method of consumer information tracking for a legitimate e-commerce company.

 

In a World Without Tracking & Cookies, Can Online Commerce Succeed?

Tracking consumers’ behavior via cookies is creepy, and increasing numbers of the aforementioned consumers are getting fed up with it.Legislators around the world are cracking down on tracking, as well, and many browsers are making it possible for people to simply opt out of tracking via cookies.

So how could online commerce, much of which is based on a cookie-fed understanding of browsing and purchase behavior, survive in a cookie-free world?

Fortunately, at least one startup in the online retail space is finding innovative and interesting ways to do business without violating users’ privacy and covertly tracking their every move.

Buyosphere is a startup we’ve covered in the past, back when it was called Shwowp. At the time, we appreciated how the startup was empowering shoppers by gathering their purchase data in one place — data that the consumer could then use when and how she or he chose. Incentives for social behaviors and influence among friends were baked in, too.

Now, the site has been gaining momentum with a slick redesign and a better brand name, and founder Tara Hunt is preaching the gospel truth about how her company is doing good business without resorting to cookie-based tracking.

 

Read more at: Mashable

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »