NSD Newsletters: Worth the Hype that Follows

Thursday, November 5th, 2009 | Internet Marketing, Internet News, NetSearch Direct News, Search Engine Marketing | No Comments

What’s it like being subscribed to the NetSearch Direct monthly newsletter? It’s like that first sip of coffee in the morning – the one that tastes the best and leaves you wanting to drain the cup. It’s like the first ten minutes on the treadmill – the ones where you’re looking your best, slightly flushed, barely out of breath, can still say “hello” to someone without clutching your chest – the one where you’re ready to kick some cardio butt. It’s like the first smell of a barbecue grill in the summer, the one that makes you want to find the home searing the good-smelling food and crash the party. Yeah, that’s what being a NetSearch Direct monthly newsletter subscriber is like.

For those of you missing out on this (FREE) optical assault of (FREE) amazing marketing tips, we’d like to let you know that being a subscriber is FREE! The NSD Newsletter is not only informative, but visually stunning as well – each month we add sweet graphics to our articles meant to invoke deep thought while entertaining your eyes. Won’t you join us?
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Tags: email monthly newsletters, email newsletter, email newsletter subscription, free marketing advice, free marketing tips, free search engine marketing advice, free search engine marketing tips, free sem advice, free sem tips, marketing advice, marketing tips, monthly newsletter, netsearch direct newsletter, newsletter, nsd newsletter

Bing!…Google is on to you

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 | Internet Marketing, Internet News, Search Engine Marketing | No Comments

The new “decision engine” with its 80 million dollar advertising budget sure has got its money’s worth with all the news, online articles and blogs circling around its arrival.

“Its beating Yahoo in search engine share!”

“Its not technically beating Yahoo’s search share.”

“This surge in search share percentage is temporary!”

” The home page graphics are a waste of time. ”

“No its Appealing and everyone loves a good useless fact!”

Whatever your opinion is about it, why not check out how others are using it to get to your site.  Google blog has announced that they will be able to track Bing! as a search engine through Google Analytics fairly soon.  If you cant wait, simply add the code below to your google analytic code: (currently Bing! is a refereeing site under traffic sources)

pageTracker._addOrganic(“bing”, “q”);

Now we play the waiting game….

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Tags: alternative search engine, Bing, Search Engines

Bing!: Oh, so we’re setting the bar low now?

Friday, June 5th, 2009 | Internet Marketing, Internet News, Search Engine Marketing | No Comments

You know those small rock chips you get on your car as you’re hurtling down the highway? Those tiny imperfections in your car’s auto body called “dings”. They’re the ones that are annoying but too small to invest money or time in repairing, so you simply ignore them. That’s how this blogger feels about Microsoft’s newly launched “Bing!” search engine. Bing! is nothing more than a rock chip along my travels on the information superhighway – thanks for scratching my paint.

Excited by all the internet buzz of this week, I visited Bing.com only to discover that I had been Punk’d. Featuring a boring graphic of nature at Her finest, Bing! offered me a search bar, and implored me to “Explore” five choices along the left navigation: Images, Videos, Shopping, News, Maps and Travel. At the bottom of the screen they offered me a “Popular Now” section with a few topics that are certainly not popular in my search behavior.

I admit that at this point I was thoroughly unimpressed. I’m a search marketer and we always hammer home the message that our client’s landing pages have to be compelling. We implore them: “You’ve got to grab your audience’s attention and inspire them to click through your site!” “Add graphics”, we suggest, “use video technology to demonstrate your products, give your reader dynamic web copy, and above all demonstrate the value of your brand and your product above the competition.”

I cannot be excited about a page that fails to embrace these simple marketing truths. No, Google’s homepage is not the stuff search engine marketers dream of – but they were first in line and get points for originality.

I feel let down. All the hype and I get a white-letter logo with an orange dot for the “i” and an old Windows Live page with a facelift. Oh, and the social media connectivity or integration? I suppose they ran out of time or money to add these as features since they were concentrating on adding their clairvoyant flight fare finder which will tell me to hold off buying that ticket because the price is likely to drop. If the rest of the world is interested in social media, why are you showing me pictures of the mountains and calling it brand new? Besides, I had to hunt down the video tutorial to teach me how to find and use their flight and hotel planner. You know, it’s funny, I know of five other sites that offer that same “New!” feature.

I recognize that my opinion is in direct contrast with many of you Bing! luv-ahs, but I’m afraid that embracing Bing! sets a standard that we just can’t accept. I expected more from you Microsoft – and I hope the purported $80 million you’re spending on advertising this remodel can be put towards adding on some real, usable features. On behalf of search engine marketers, informed consumers, savvy Internet explorers, persons with heartbeat, and individuals across the nation who can’t stand to be hyped up and then disappointed – Bing!, since you failed to lead, or even follow, please get out of the way. Besides, I hate chipped paint.

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Tags: Bing, landing page, microsoft, microsoft bing, new search engine, search engine, Search Engine Marketing

Do You Know What Your Mom Is Doing Online?

Monday, May 18th, 2009 | Internet Marketing, Internet News, Search Engine Marketing | No Comments

So what are American Moms doing online – checking their email, checking their checking account balance, the weather or what’s on sale?  How about all of the above?  Not surprisingly all of these are among the top ten online activities  for moms according to a study  by Marketing Moms Coalition. What is surprising is that the same study reports that American Moms with children under the age of eighteen spend an average of three hours a day on line, one hour more than the two hours their school age children are spending online.

This is great news for merchants who are selling their products online or utilizing the internet to influence the purchase of their product or service off line.  Families/Mothers with children under the age of eighteen consistently ranks among the most sought after demographics by advertisers.  In many cases these ladies carry the keys to their household’s treasure chest of disposable  income.  In short, American Moms are making or influencing most of their family’s purchases.  Knowing where one can find these moms (online) and understanding what they are doing there, allows marketers to more effectively target them.

Makes sense, but specifically where online can you find them and what tactics can a marketer utilize to reach them?  The most obvious is an email marketing campaign.  85% of American Moms are checking/sending email.  Gathering emails from and then re-marketing to moms with a professional, well designed and topical email marketing campaign should  be at the top of a marketer’s list.  One of our customers now ties in most of the discounts that they offer to “email club members”.   Within a several months they have built their email to well over a 1,000.

The next best place to find these American Moms are the search engines.  I submit that most of the remaining top ten activities involve a search on Google, Yahoo or MSN.  So a page one presence (91% of consumers never search past the first page)  on these search engines, in either the organic or sponsored links section, is paramount.  Display ads on sites which are targeting this demographic is another opportunity that should be considered.

So now that you know where you can find the typical American Mom,  isn’t it  time to reach out and tell her all the reasons why she should be spending money with you?

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The Social Media Mindset: Just who is in control of Facebook?

Friday, April 3rd, 2009 | Internet News, Social Networking Sites | No Comments

An interesting post in Slate reads differently from what you may be thinking; it’s not the creators, the executives, or even the purse-holding accountants – it’s the users. Slate author Edmond Lee argues that it’s the same users who have signed up for a free account and use Facebook bandwidth to create personal profiles, upload pictures, and network on personal and professional levels that are really calling the shots. His biggest example: the recent uproar among Facebookers over the change in Terms of Service. Unless you’ve been unplugged from every media source you’ve heard about it: the calamity Facebook caused when they changed their terms to say that they basically assume ownership over every piece of personalized material you upload to their servers; you can upload but you can’t ever delete the content. Outraged, and likely perplexed (why do they want to keep the picture of me and my sister in our backyard???), Facebookers raged against the machines. Quick to defend Facebook’s stance, CEO Mark Zuckerberg attempted to put out the flames by explaining that the terms merely reflected an information-sharing security measure.

Let’s spin it old school: say I leave behind a few personal items at my parent’s home and later return to throw out some items and take a few others with me when I leave for college. My parents, worried that their trash may be picked through or that the objects will be stolen from my dorm room, forbid the items to leave the house saying they’re just looking after my [information-sharing] security. Granted, my parents aren’t in the business of raising children for money but the principal is the same. They provided me a free service (a space to call my own) and during this time I added my personal affects to this space. Now that I’m ready to take my personal items elsewhere they’re claiming control.

Three days later Facebook changed the wording back to the original terms.

Slate’s position is that this step backwards was a huge transgression on the part of Facebook and that the company is “doomed to fail”. LOL! “By heeding to the objections of its grumbling users, Facebook has essentially painted itself into a revenue corner.” ROFL!

I respectfully, and wholeheartedly, disagree. Social media – from a networking or marketing perspective – fundamentally is ALL ABOUT the user and it always has been. Sure, it’s a business and it’s got to turn a profit but Facebook isn’t having any trouble turning huge profit numbers and its business model is not in jeopardy now simply because they listened to their users. If ever there was a sign for the positive effects democracy can bring, Facebook has shown us in a new-age sort of way.

Facebook’s business principal is growth, then revenue. They invest time first in learning the behaviors of their users and then turning it into a profit. Perhaps that’s why it’s overtaking MySpace in terms of growth, flying right in the face of MySpace’s business principal: money first! Facebook hasn’t stepped backwards; they’ve leaped forward and businesses looking to make a profit and keep happy customers have some homework to do when it comes to customer service, client retention, and brand management.

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Tags: facebook, facebook terms of service, facebook tos, Social Media Marketing, social media networking, social media profit, social networking