If you’re in marketing, or if your idea of a good time is following privacy issues beyond just those associated with Facebook and Instagram, you’ve certainly heard the phrase “remarketing” in 2012. From a marketing perspective, remarketing is a dream. It’s the web world’s automated equivalent of a salesperson getting the phone number of a prospect who visited the “store” in order to contact the person at a later date — except remarketing does not know anything about the person to whom the sales messages will be delivered, other than that the person had visited a coded website, and remarketing simply feeds ads to the prospects as they peruse various websites fed by Google ads.
In a nutshell, once someone visits your site, a code from your site is placed on the person’s browser that allows Google to feed your remarketing ads to the person at a schedule you create. These can be pay-per-click ads, so it only cost you money if the person clicks on the ad. Even better is that if, while on your site, the person does what you want him to do (ie purchases, signs up for a class, fills in a contact form, etc.), the remarketing code can be removed automatically. The thought is, why spend money marketing to someone who just bought? Then again, your remarketing dollars to that person can be spent on getting a testimonial from the buyer. Pretty cool, huh?
Here’s Google’s webinar on remarketing. It’s one hour long, but worth it if you want to understand how it works.
The 2012 Summer Olympics will be a bit different than in past years. Since the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the number of people that have access to the internet has increased by over 50%, from 1.5 to 2.3 billion according to the International Telecommunication Union. That’s a third of the global population.
Fittingly, the 2012 games in London have been dubbed the World’s First “Social Games.” Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube will be some of the biggest players in this social media trend, but also be on the lookout for content flooding Pinterest, Google+, Instagram, and Foursquare. With all the hype of the digitally focused games, here are we listed 7 places you can use to keep up with the chatter.
1. The Olympic Athlete’s Hub
This site will let you search for any athlete’s name, team, sport, discipline or event and find where to “follow” or “like” that result and has a news feed that compiles both Twitter and Facebook posts into one stream.
2. SportRightNow
You can find all the best Olympics news from the internet in one place organized by website sources, sports, and teams whether the news is from teams, journalists, media, fans or athletes. Also has the top hashtags being used on Twitter which is a bonus.
3. London 2012 Youtube Account
Not only will it be posting behind the scene footage from the games, exclusive interviews with athletes, and amazing replays, it also has links to the Official Website, Twitter and Facebook account of the 2012 Olympic Games.
4. Sociagility: The London 2012 Social Scoreboard
For the marketing buffs on the internet this site will be tracking the social media performance of the Olympics sponsors. The score is based on some highly complicated algorithms that look at brands popularity, engagement, receptiveness, reach, and trust.
5. London Join In App
This App for Apple and Android will help Olympic enthusiasts follow the travels of the torch and the location of events happening in London. It is made to help people in London, but also anyone who cannot make it to feel as close as possible to the games.
7. NBC Olympics Apps and Website
NBC will have full live screening of every Olympic event online but will also include two different Apps for people to enjoy. The first App is the NBC Olympics App where users will be able to do many of the same things as the London App’s but within a NBC-made App. The second App is the NBC Olympics “Live Extra” App where you can watch live video streams and full replays of every event.
The Olympics are always exciting, but with the recent growth of the internet and social media the competing nations will be closer together than ever before.
When building a new website, you want it to be eye catching and helpful to visitors. But something that can get lost while minding your new page’s aesthetics is how the website looks to Google.
A Sitemap, in simple terms, is a list of the pages on your website. Why is it important? We’ll let Google explain:
“Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google’s normal crawling process.”
Your page’s Sitemap gives it a clearer navigation and outline, which Google is happy to reward by boosting the search rank of your page. Google’s search algorithm is as secret as the KFC recipe, but here’s the truth: If you take two identical web pages and give one a Sitemap, that page will have a better Google rank than the page without the Sitemap.
If you have dynamic content on your page within a content management system, a Sitemap is absolutely essential.
Google likes to have a dog in every fight and the music player competition is no different. There is currently a Google Music Beta which allows you to upload 20,000 songs from your personal collection. They’ve also implemented a lot of features to make sure your music is available to you everywhere. There rumored music download service is also on the verge of being released.
Stiff competition from powerhouses like iTunes, Pandora, and Amazon will make it hard for Google Music to make their mark. Google also must compete with the up-and-comer Spotify, which has integrated itself well with Facebook and has quickly become a Demi & Cooper favorite.
The video below explains what Google Music is all about.
With Google+ being launched on a field trial basis this past month, much commotion has been made among internet consumers and marketers alike. The Google+ project is said to take on the Facebook dynasty in new and innovative ways. The network is similar to Facebook but has many of its own unique qualities. Google+, already being labeled as a social network, will essentially utilize all Google products into its navigation bar for a more complete experience.
For marketers, Google+ should provide enormous opportunities. While Facebook marketers can gain some insight into their consumers based on likes and their history on the Facebook website, Google+ may have the ability to do much more than that…
Imagine a consumer searching the Google homepage, researching a new electronics product they wish to purchase. After clicking on an ad from Google Adwords they are transported to your website promoting and selling that product. They come close to purchase but never convert. This would be the end of tracking for a marketer without Google+. What if you could then follow the consumer to their Google+ account where they go to ask for recommendations from the people they trust? This is the place for “remarketing”, where you could utilize hyper-targeted ads for these on the fence buyers to offer them free shipping with their purchase of the electronic item. Boom – Conversion.
Google+ has yet to launch to the public, nor has it made any announcement about its plans for Google+ advertisement, however the potential is there. Personally, I believe that privacy issues will be the biggest concern for Google+ when ad and marketing development comes into play. It will be interesting to see in the future how Google+ pans out for marketers, consumers and just plain internet users in the future.
I just came across this article about amassing huge amounts of Google traffic that really stands out from other search engine optimization tips on the web. Viperchill explains in depth why to use current events as tags to increase traffic to your site.
There is a percentage that SEO geeks like me should be keeping in the back of their heads. 20-25% of search terms on Google are completely unique–as in, they have not been searched in the history of the web browser. When the right time approaches, these unique items will have front-page results for whichever website is being promoted. The key to taking advantage of these facts is knowing when people will begin searching for the terms, and knowing exactly which tags should be used in order for a site to pop up to the top of the Google popularity contest. The trick, as explained on Viperchill, is using “current event” tags.
A satisfactory current event is not necessarily something pre-determined, such as Thanksgiving or Christmas. These terms have been searched to death in previous years. Instead, one should get creative and pay attention to what truly seems to matter to the masses. I’m going to use a blanket excuse of “I am the only male in a family of three sisters and a mom” to let the following suggestion slip out. The upcoming Bachelorette season finale. If you are catering a website or selling a product catering specifically to the 18-45 age group of females, consider including “2011 bachelorette finale results” (or some variation) as a tag. As much as it pains me to say it, reality TV is all the rage. A great deal of the female demographic is going to search something related to the show, whether it be a particular contestant choice or a nasty catchphrase uttered by a macho dude in the confession room. Other past examples of event tags include “michael jackson death” and “ufc 101 streaming for free.” The next goldmine will probably be the World Cup results. Google Trends and Twitter trending topics for any past date can easily be accessed. Videos are even being posted for upcoming events that have not happened yet, such as this premature “release” of the new Red Hot Chili Peppers single. The advantage of these posts means that the content can be quickly updated when the event actually occurs.
This SEO tip really got me thinking about the direction web marketing is heading. It is not as easy to change consumer perceptions or brand a product with exaggerated claims on TV, and I think that these enhanced perceptions of what honest advertising is will carry over to the internet. Pop-up ads that are difficult to exit out of or ads that are disguised as legitimate site content are already frustrating enough for the average user. The frustration that will come from users trying to generate relevant results on Google search is guaranteed to increase if sites are appearing without the relevant information that is needed. While Google’s constant search algorithms make it hard to master SEO, I believe that it is a beneficial safeguard for users at the moment.
If you plan on taking advantage of the current events tags, just be sure to include relevant content that provides web searchers the information that they are looking for. Content can be a blog article, a product demonstration video, or even a Flickr gallery. High traffic on the internet is a source of great power and potential revenue. As with anything though, traffic can be generated tastefully or barbarically. It is ultimately up to the SEO geek what guidelines to follow.
I would also like to point out that I tagged this blog entry with “Shia Lebeouf.” He’s numero uno on Google Trends today. We’ll see if that gets me more readers or if it just further reinforces my inner geek.
The ulterior motives of the seemingly harmless social network sharing buttons which now appear on thousands of top websites.
Cookies, and not the edible kind, are now being placed on a user’s computer after visiting websites containing a Facebook Like button or any other social network sharing button, such as the Tweet button. Primary intent of these buttons is meant to allow users to share interests and other favored items with friends through their social network’s news feed. Evidently, this is not the only purpose they serve.
Even if a web page visitor doesn’t actively click on the button, personal information and browsing history can be linked to the user and their personal profile, provided they have logged into their social networking page within the last month.
It is estimated that Facebook buttons now appear on one-third of the top visited websites, with Google buttons following close behind. Google buttons are used similarly to social networking buttons and can be found on approximately one-fourth of these sites. The use of the “Tweet” button for Twitter is also on the rise, currently seen on one-fifth of top pages.
According to creators of the Facebook button, information gained from user activity tracking is used only to create powerful, highly targeted advertising on the site. They claim that personal data is made anonymous and the data cannot be tracked back to specific users. However, the data collected remains in the system for three months, much longer than Google’s two week info-retainment period.
If you are concerned for your social networking confidentiality, Kashmir Hill of Forbes suggests you “log out of these sites after you’re done checking your email, tweeting, poking or what have you.” But most Facebook users may find the privacy risk is preferable to frequent logins.
Note: Integrated Gmail is a Firefox add-on. Pro Tip: If you’re not using Firefox, start using Firefox.
If you’re like me, you routinely have plenty of reading to catch up on from bloggers and news sources that are fed into your Google Reader. Sure, it would be easier to check it constantly, but who can remember to click that Reader button at the top of your Google page?
More often than not, I log into Gmail and do the email routine, log out, and move on with my day. Before long, my Reader is backed up like Porta Johns at the Taste of Chicago, and I have to neglect things I may have enjoyed in order to catch up.
Enter Integrated Gmail, a convenient organizer that is added on to the Firefox browser. If you’re a feed junkie, you just may love this timesaver.
Integrated Gmail has been downloaded 1.374 million times since its creation.
Search engines have put the power of instant knowledge into the hands of consumers. A huge number of individuals will start their purchasing process online using a search engine such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. These people will look for prices, locations, reviews, and complaints. That is why it is so important to have positive results of your company at the top of the search results. Read the full story
For you avid readers out there, Google has launched its new eBookstore. After a brief period browsing the page, here’s what I’ve come away with.
The pricing for the eBooks on Google mirrors what you’d see on your Kindle, iPad, or any other eReader you have. New releases and best sellers range from $10 to $15, with slashed prices for less popular or older titles.
The collection of free titles is abundant and easy to access. Within seconds of loading Google eBooks for the first time, I was reading Chapter 1 of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. All you need to access the titles is a functional web browser, which you most likely possess if you’re reading this blog post.
Launching a book in your browser, you’re able to adjust font, font size, and line spacing as you read. Each book has a Contents section that lets you jump around easily. It’s not mentioned whether taking notes or highlighting text is available. From what I gathered, it’s not yet a feature Google Books offers.
Whether the book is paid or free, diving into its pages for the first time places that title in a “My Google eBooks” page, which saves the book for later use. The page you were last on is bookmarked for your return, as well.
Google boasts that it has the largest collection of eBooks around (of which nearly 3 million are free), and there is unlimited storage space for all of your titles.
It’s my recommendation that you start out by browsing the “Best of the free” section on the Google bookstore home page. You’ll find a huge variety of authors, including Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, Twain, and Melville. Have fun, but remember to keep stretching yourself creatively as well. As Einstein once said, “Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”
On the business side, Google’s bookstore appears to be competing with Amazon’s Kindle. Downloading an eBook on Google lets you read the title on Android, Apple, PC, Barnes & Noble, and Sony platforms, but it does not appear that a Google-purchased book can be read on Kindle. This reaffirms that Amazon is on an isolated, albeit sizable, island in the eReader community.
There is a percentage that SEO geeks like me should be keeping in the back of their heads. 20-25% of search terms on Google are completely unique–as in, they have not been searched in the history of the web browser. When the right time approaches, these unique items will have front-page results for whichever website is being promoted. The key to taking advantage of these facts is knowing when people will begin searching for the terms, and knowing exactly which tags should be used in order for a site to pop up to the top of the Google popularity contest. The trick, as explained on 
This SEO tip really got me thinking about the direction web marketing is heading. It is not as easy to change consumer perceptions or brand a product with exaggerated claims on TV, and I think that these enhanced perceptions of what honest advertising is will carry over to the internet. Pop-up ads that are difficult to exit out of or ads that are disguised as legitimate site content are already frustrating enough for the average user. The frustration that will come from users trying to generate relevant results on Google search is guaranteed to increase if sites are appearing without the relevant information that is needed. While Google’s constant search algorithms make it hard to master SEO, I believe that it is a beneficial safeguard for users at the moment.
