Duda, a leading website-building platform, has announced a powerful new partnership with ActiveCampaign, a top player in marketing automation and CRM. This integration promises to transform how agencies build and manage client websites, offering seamless access to advanced email marketing and automation tools directly within Duda’s intuitive platform. [Read more…]

In a significant move for the digital marketing world, INDEXR AI has announced the appointment of Duane Forrester as Senior Vice President of Search Product. Forrester, a renowned figure in the search industry, brings over two decades of experience and leadership to his new role, where he will spearhead the development of cutting-edge search technologies. [Read more…]

By Bill Hartzer, February 3, 2020 at 9:25am CST.

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, has been absorbed into the Digital Analytics Association. Both associations agreed that there were ultimately going to be more opportunities available for current and would-be SEMPO members by joining the two organizations together. This essentially means that SEMPO, is no longer operating as a stand-alone organization. [Read more…]

The search industry, an industry that I’ve been proud to be a part of for the past 20 years, needs a Hall of Fame. The industry as a whole, which includes search engine marketing, PPC, internet marketing, website marketing, search engine marketing, etc. etc., should recognize those who are responsible for making the industry what it is today. Here are several reasons, along with some names of people that I think should be considered for the Search Hall of Fame. [Read more…]

Let’s take a look back, a throwback of sorts, back to the year 2000, when Pay Per Click was just getting started. This was uncharted waters, where companies were willing to test those uncharted waters of the PPC world. FindWhat was a popular search engine that didn’t offer any organic or “natural” search results. It was PPC only, and the higher you bid the better placement you got. [Read more…]

A Google AdWords bug has cost a company thousands of dollars. Even after Google fixed the situation for the company, Google has not offered the company a refund or even a credit on their account. Lawnstarter.com realized that Google was running their ads in Austin, Texas with someone else’s phone number–even though the company is located in Virginia and restricted their ads to their local area.

In a blog post on the company’s website, Lawnstarter explained what happened: [Read more…]

A lot of companies that you typically wouldn’t expect to offer SEO (search engine optimization) or SEM (Search Engine Marketing, PPC) services have lately have begun to offer such services to their current customers. A while back Deluxe Corporation bought Orange Soda, and Behr Paint then started offering SEO and SEM services to their Pro contractors. Now, the latest company to jump on the SEO/SEM bandwagon is IBM. [Read more…]

If you have a brick and mortar business with a physical street address that you publicize (you typically have customers visit you at your location), then you should be listed in the “local” listings of the major search engines. Yahoo! Local, for example, is one that you should make sure that you’re listed in–and your listing should be correct. [Read more…]

Update: December 14, 2013: I have received complaints about this SEO tool, as it either is no longer being updated, or the service is unreliable. I personally spoke with the owners of this tool and these issues have been resolved now. [Read more…]

As of today, August 27, 2013, the Google AdWords Keyword Tool is gone. You can no longer use this free online keyword research tool to get the average number of searches per month for keywords. And you can no longer get keyword suggestions from the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. [Read more…]

During a recent comment thread on Facebook by Steve Floyd, the subject of SEOs (Search Engine Optimization pros or “search engine optimizers”) and SEMs (Search Engine Marketers or “Pay Per Click professionals”) came up. During this heated discussion, I think there was only one thing that many tended to agree on: SEOs and SEMs are very different. [Read more…]

Before you get started on the Google Display Network (GDN), or even if you’re already engaged in display campaigns there, it’s important to understand the five aspects of this channel that most greatly affect the outcomes of those campaigns, and to manage these aspects with precision and daily awareness. [Read more…]

As an internet marketer, the primary function of your job is to drive high quality traffic to your site, with the ultimate goal of converting that traffic to either a sale, completed lead form, newsletter subscription or some other conversion point. So for your site to generate more revenue, you need more relevant traffic, right? [Read more…]

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a marketing practice that compares the performance of a control group with test samples, differentiated by a single variable. [Read more…]

Many internet marketers are familiar with the SEOQuake plugin for Firefox which helps you find out the demographics of various keywords, and domains. This information is VERY useful if you are working to find websites with high page rank where you can put comments in order to develop strong backlinks for your money sites. [Read more…]

Business.com is being shut down. Well, technically speaking, Dex One is realigning its interactive operations and will fully integrate Business.com into Dex One. The company, in a press release today, says that they plan to phase out Business.com, primarily a national business-to-business sales and marketing operation and focus exclusively on the Dex One business. [Read more…]

Yahoo! has decided to close the Yahoo! Publisher Network. For those of you who are not familiar with the Yahoo! Publisher Network, it is a contextual advertising network that relies on ads from the Yahoo! Search Marketing program. [Read more…]

There is a new automated programmatic Search Engine Marketing analysis software out there that attempts to identify Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Advertising revenue and cost savings opportunities. At a time where everyone seems to be cutting costs wherever possible because of the economy, this is a much-needed tool for search engine pay per click advertisers. [Read more…]

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, has announced the 2008 Board of Director Nominees. [Read more…]

 

DoubleClick and IAC Advertising Solutions have launched DART Search’s bid management and conversion tracking features forAsk Sponsored Listings(R) (ASL). [Read more…]

 

Is Jason Calacanis now in the search engine marketing automation business? Perhaps not, but an interesting investment by Sequoia Capital, the company that where Jason Calacanis serves as “Entrepreneur in Action”, puts Mr. Calacanis a little closer to being in the SEM automation business. [Read more…]

 

Google has reached an agreement with Hearst-Argyle Television where Hearst-Argyle Television will be the first television reseller of Google AdWords, Google’s Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. [Read more…]

Note: This is an archived blog post Links in this post have been removed because the SEO White Paper from Business.com has been removed.

Business.com has released the 2008 B2B Search Marketing Strategy Guide: Advice from the Pros, a free SEO white paper that helps business to business marketing pros deliver better ROI for their company using search engine marketing. [Read more…]

On the Google AdSense blog there’s a new post introducing video adsense units. You can now add video to your site and make money. This is a very cool new feature, which will add more content to your site–and it also gets us even closer to real “true” contextual video. [Read more…]

Managing a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign can be difficult at times, especially when there’s a lot of competition for keyword phrases that cost a lot. Prices for the most coveted keyword phrases are rising and the overall cost of a PPC campaign in a competitive industry can be downright outrageous, with major corporations spending tens thousands of dollars a month on Pay Per click Advertising. Couple the high cost of a PPC campaign with someone doesn’t know how to manage a PPC campaign properly and it’s downright dangerous. [Read more…]

EarthLink Business Solutions, a division of EarthLink, Inc. (the web hosting company), is introducing a subscription service where EarthLink Business Solutions “guarantees” the number of clicks or “visitors” to their customers’ business website. [Read more…]

Marketo, a company that provides marketing automation software that helps B2B marketing professionals drive revenue and improve accountability, has integrated their PPC (Pay Per Click) tools with Salesforce and they’re now available on the Salesforce.com AppExchange. [Read more…]

Visual Sciences, formerly known as WebSideStory, has launched “Visual Sciences Bid 2.0”, a keyword bid management solution (a pay per click PPC bid management solution). This new version adds new capabilities and functionality in an attempt to streamline campaign management and increase ROI. [Read more…]

   

Steve Haar, the Senior Director of Media of Leapfrog Online, has been appointed the co-chairman of SEMPO’s (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) Global Search Committee. Leapfrog Online is a leading independent digital direct marketing firm. [Read more…]

   

Microsoft and Ask.com have reached a deal to allow Microsoft Office Live customers to manage their Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns on two of the top five search engines–with one service. [Read more…]

HitTail, a gives you in real-time the least utilized, most promising keywords hidden in the long tail of your natural search results, has issued is four millionth writing suggestion yesterday.

This four millionth suggestions, just like all the others, an under-performing keyword phrase that brought someone to a website. If the website owner used that keyword phrase as a writing topic for new content on their site, it will most likely generate additional website traffic through the organic search results.

The HitTail service analyzes the words people have used to find a website through the organic search results. It then creates suggestions for the website owner which can be written about in the future.

As the scale and the scope of the internet grown, it becomes easier for online businesses, bloggers, and other website owners to gain online exposure. According to WIRED Magazine, 9 blogs are created every minute and 2.3 website content updates are posted every second. With an estimated audience of 57 million adults reading blogs (Pew Internet & American Life Project estimate), writers have access to a huge audience on the internet if they have the correct tools to expand their reach.

The HitTail service is a cool service to use for several reasons, including the ability to track traffic from the organic search results in real-time and visually display the Long Tail of search. It also creates high-quality, unique keyword suggestions that can be used as writing topics or keywords for cost-effective PPC campaigns

Since the launch of HitTail in the summer of 2006, the HitTail service has drawn attention and accolades from webmasters, bloggers and marketers for its ability to analyze enormous amounts of data in real-time and generate the keywords that can optimize site content or guide PPC and SEM campaigns.

HitTail is a free service, but also offers HitTail Plus, a premium version with additional features for professionals who manage secure e-Commerce sites or prefer their suggestions by e-mail or RSS feed.

HitTail was named one of the “Best Ideas of 2006” by the editors of BusinessWeek. It was recently named the best free service for “E-commerce Website Analytics” by PC World.

For more information about your site’s hittail, check out HitTail.com.

Adverplex, a Wakefield Massachusetts-based company that provides search engine marketing solutions, has appointed Dr. Philip N. Klein as “Chief Scientist”. In this role, Dr. Klein is charged with leading Adverplex’s research and development efforts. He will focus on algorithms, combinatorial optimization and probabilistic analysis.

Dr. Philip N. Klein is a tenured member of the Computer Science faculty at Brown University. He is a leading U.S. computer scientist that specialized in algorithms and combinatorial optimization. Dr. Philip N. Klein was a Visiting Scholar at the Princeton University Department of Computer Science and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Mathematics. Dr. Klein was also a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University.

According to Adverplex, Dr. Klein has consulted and worked with Xerox PARC, NEC Research Institute, BBN and AT&T Labs. He is a recipient of many grants from the National Science Foundation, including the Presidential Young Investigator Award. During his career, Dr. Philip N. Klein has received numerous other research, teaching and corporate awards.

Dr. Philip N. Klein earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT after graduating summa cum laude from Harvard with an A.B. in Applied Mathematics.

Adverplex is a company that provides advanced search engine marketing solutions to manage the complexity of large-scale SEM campaigns involving millions of keywords. Adverplex’s proprietary technology brings a unique level of precision and flexibility to keyword expansion, bid optimization and campaign management.

With these capabilities, Adverplex was founded in 2005 and is privately held and currently has 25 employees at its headquarters in Wakefield, Massacusetts. For more information about Adverplex, go to http://www.adverplex.com/.

It simply amazes me that companies–and individuals, for that matter, can think that sending unsolicited commercial email (aka UCE or otherwise known as SPAM) to try to get more clients. I understand that if you send out 1 million of these emails that you might actually get .01 percent to respond to your “offer”. However, it’s now against the law to send unsolicited commercial email, and there’s a good chance that you will annoy more people who will either a)complain about you or b)write a blog post about the fact that you send out unsolicited commercial email to companies. I chose the latter.

We need do something about SPAM and companies who call themselves “search engine marketers” or “SEO Companies”. If you’re going to do business in this industry then you need to realize that sending UCE is not acceptable. By sending junque like this you’re giving the Search Marketing Industry a black eye.

What’s even more hilarious is that a company that calls themselves an “SEO Company: Search Engine Marketing Experts: Search Engine Optimization Los Angeles” is trying to promote their “profitable internet marketing” services to one of their competitors, me.

What proof? I checked my email today, and got what I would call an “unsolicited commercial email” from someone named Neal Stone, the Executive Vice President of a company called NetSuccessUSA:

From: “Neal Stone”
To:
Subject: Suggestion re: billhartzer.com
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:45:02 +0530

Dear Website Owner,

If I could get you five times the RELEVANT traffic at a substantially reduced cost would you be interested? NetSuccessUSA can place your website on top of the Natural Listings on Google, Yahoo and MSN. Our Search Engine Optimization team delivers more top rankings than anyone else and we can prove it. We do not use “link farms” or “black hat” methods that Google and the other search engines frown upon and can use to de-list or ban your site. The techniques are proprietary, involving some valuable closely held trade secrets. Our prices are less than half of what other companies charge. [Read more…]

Did-it, a full-service online advertising and marketing services company, has been qualified as a Certified Ambassador Agency by Yahoo! Search Marketing. The Yahoo! Search Marketing Certified Ambassador tier is designed to meet the needs of higher-performing agencies, SEMs and other search marketing resellers who channel a considerable amount of their clients’ quarterly ad-spend to Yahoo! Search Marketing. [Read more…]

Microsoft Office Live is teaming up with Website Pros, a provider of website building tools, internet marketing, and lead generation solutions, to offer web site design and search engine marketing services. Microsoft Office Live is attempting to make it easier for small business to get online by offering them new “Do-It-for-Me Services”.

Not only will they provide easy and affordable do-it-yourself tools, Microsoft Office Live will add “do-it-for-me” help as well.

While many Microsoft Office Live customers like maintaining an online presence, some would like extra help. Website Pros will provide Microsoft Office Live customers with a consultant to assist with web design as well as search engine marketing. Website Pros will also attempt to help businesses take their existing web site to the next level in terms of site sophistication and design.

During the month of June, 2007, Microsoft Office Live plans to offer the following special Website Pros Web design package:

— Five-page, professionally designed Microsoft Office Live Web site that can be updated at any time

— Submission of the Microsoft Office Live Web site to MSN(R), Google, Yahoo! and 100 other search engines each month

Editor’s Note: Bill Hartzer does not recommend “submitting” your web site or any other web site or web page to the major search engines. Furthermore, business owners need to be aware that there are really four major search engines now, Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask.com. Frankly, I’m amazed that companies are still offering “web site submission services” like these.

— Unlimited consulting with a Website Pros design and marketing consultant during the first 30 days of the subscription, and then monthly check-ins with the consultant

— A toll-free number and call tracking reports

— Pack of 250 free printed business cards with URL and e-mail addresses sent directly to the small business

— Monthly listing in Yahoo! Yellow Pages

Customers pay only $79.95 a month for all these services. Website Pros will design a Microsoft Office Live Web site for existing Microsoft Office Live Basics, Office Live Essentials and Office Live Premium customers; standard charges apply to Essentials and Premium customers.

More information is available at http://www.officelive.com/.

SubmitNet Inc., a company whose headquarters is in Portland, Oregon, and a company that provides customized technology-based platforms for Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing solutions, is going to offer marketing tools to small and medium-sized businesses through ProStores, which is an eBay company. [Read more…]

     

Google and Salesforce.com have formed what they’re calling a “strategic global alliance”. They’ve partnered to offer a new product called Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google Adwords. This new product combines the power of Salesforce’s on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) applications with the power of the Google AdWords pay per click (PPC) program to integrate sales and marketing. With this new product, Salesforce and Google is attempting to provide everything a company needs to “jump start” its customer growth using a single on-demand service. [Read more…]

Yahoo! has announced that they’re opening up their Search Marketing APIs. They will have dedicated third-party partner services as well as free, open access to Yahoo!’s “Panama” advertising platform technology. Yahoo! expects that opening their Search Marketing APIs will drive further growth and innovation in digital advertising. [Read more…]

If you’ve been in a bubble or on vacation in the Bahamas or Tahiti for the past week, then you probably don’t know who Andrew Speaker is. He’s the recently-married Atlanta, Georgia attorney-turned tuberculosis patient (the man with TB) who thoughtfully decided to get on a plane and travel to Europe for a while even though he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis. In fact, the kind of tuberculosis he has is one that’s not very easily treatable by “normal” drugs. To make a long story short, he knew he had tuberculosis, traveled on several planes throughout Europe, was on the no fly list in the US, decided to fly to Canada and then enter the USA via the Canadian border, is been quarantined by the CDC, and is now currently undergoing treatment. But that’s not why I’ve decided to talk about Andrew Speaker and Power Advocates. [Read more…]

Marketo, a company that provides business to business marketing automation software, is launching Marketo Search Marketing. Marketo Search Marketing comes in two modules, one called “Marketo Pay-Per-Click” and one called “Marketo Landing Pages”. Marketo Pay-Per-Click aims to improve the performance of PPc campaigns. Marketo Landing Pages aims to traffic into leads by letting users create, publish and test landing pages. Microsoft PowerPoint-like interface. [Read more…]