Photo courtesy jason shellen

Kids’ Internet usage has always been a hotly studied topic. How familiar are children with navigating the Internet? How user-friendly are websites for the young ones? Can kids distinguish the difference between sponsored search results and organic search results? More interestingly how do kids use search engines to discover new information?

The photo from this post comes from a story featured on Digg.com in which two kids made a poster for their dad after his last day working at Google.

Unarguably, Google is the most powerful search engine on the web today, but to young googlers, its simplistic design and lack of visual appeal and interactivity are probably turn-offs. Since it’s very unlikely that young kids are familiar with complex search operands, what tools or methods are available for them to learn how to better refine their search queries?

SortFix

This is where SortFix.com comes in. SortFix is a metasearch engine that recently began receiving more hype. What’s interesting about SortFix is its drag-and-drop interface, which brings back interactivity and learning at the same time.

After typing in a term from the SortFix home page, the engine breaks down your results and displays “Power Words,” which can be sorted into baskets. The concept is very simple: if the searcher likes a term, add it to the “Add to Search Basket,” if he doesn’t, then add it to the “Remove Basket.” The idea behind this is that refining your search and filtering out words is as quick as clicking and dragging; no additional typing is needed.

How you can benefit from SortFix

Go give SortFix a spin. SortFix makes search fun and somewhat interactive, especially for the young ones. What’s interesting about this is that people unfamiliar with search can start using modifiers and growing into better Googlers searchers. SortFix displays results from Google, Yahoo! and DMOZ, all accessible from separate categories. If Google was a bike, Sortfix would be its training wheels.

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By the end of this year, there is going to be a whole new world for internet advertising, quite literally. This “world” is going to be PS3’s new social networking experience, called PS3 Home. It will be a free game that you log into and then interact with people much in the same fashion as people do in comparable titles like, “The Sims.” What’s different about this world though, is going to be the ability for people to advertise on it. Publishers are going to be able to buy privileges to set up “shop” in the online world, and subsequently advertise themselves, network with others, and eventually even sell goods via the game.

Imagine this new world. You turn on your console, you log into this virtual world and suddenly you are inundated with advertisements. Sony says that the goal of this “free” program isn’t to just supply unlimited advertising space, but one must wonder how truthful that is. Given that a virtual world isn’t limited by anything except it’s development, a rising popularity in this simulation experience would necessitate a higher need to advertise within it. It would simply be Sony’s only way to keep things running. Add in all their ideas about possible expansion, and commercial content, and we have a regularly advertising gold mine.

It’s hard to really picture the limitations that advertisers will have with this universe as well. It could very well be the Wild West for quite some time on PS3 Home. You might log on and be bombarded with people running their character up to you and spamming text bubbles or voice comments of, “CALL 1800 XXXXXXX NOW AND SAVE ON YOUR CAR INSURANCE” or a million other versions of this. It could quite easily become quite a nuisance to even participate in this world, if such a large proportion of people there are just online to advertise and try and “hook” you.

Thinking further about what you can expect from this world, one would start to also wonder where lines will be drawn. Will there be a “red light district” within this world? How will Sony bias legitimate honest advertisers vs. people running scams? I can’t even comprehend all the undertakings that Sony is going to have to deal with in order to make this simulation a place to both have healthy and fun interactions with people, and be a great ticket into the scene of network marketing.  It just seems like the interests of one party will be in contradiction of the other and considering it’s a “free” gaming experience, which direction the scale is going to tip seems crystal clear to me.

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The waiting game continues for Microsoft as Yahoo! buys more time. As I’m sure you all know, Microsoft made a $44.6 billion bid to merge with Yahoo! on February 1, which was rejected. The deadline for Yahoo! to return to the negotiating table with Microsoft was March 14, which came and went as Yahoo! managed to postpone, for 10 days after their annual shareholder’s meeting, the replacement of the ten directors that rejected Microsoft’s offer. This annual shareholder’s meeting has not yet been scheduled and could be held as late as July 12, 2008.

Microsoft proposed this merger with Yahoo! in the interest of Yahoo!’s shareholders. In his letter to Yahoo!’s Board of Directors, Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation, stated: “the combined company will be better positioned to provide an enhanced value proposition to users and advertisers.” He also explained that “the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers.” Microsoft appears to be acknowledging Google’s dominance in the search market advertising field, but also that they want their fair share of the pie, and they aren’t going out quietly.

Although it is a privilege to advertise with Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft (MSN), from dealing with all three on a regular basis, it is clear why Google seems to be the industry leader in campaign development for search market advertising. In one downloadable campaign management application – Google’s AdWords Editor – campaign development and management are made immensely more convenient. This tool allows you to navigate through your campaign, bulk post, copy and paste all aspects of it, and upload changes easily and quickly. It’s a little like comparing a Betamax and a DVD player. Making changes and uploading campaigns in Yahoo! and Microsoft is a slow and tedious process, while in Google it is a breeze.

The possible merging of Microsoft and Yahoo! to “offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers” may be just what the users and advertisers need. If this merge actually happens between the two companies, it will hopefully improve their services rather than impair them. The “two heads are better than one” mentality seems to be a step in the right direction, but only time will tell.

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As an account manager here at Wpromote I get a number of questions regarding positioning. I have learned one thing; everyone wants to be number one. Number one positioning means that your ad comes up first in the sponsored listings, generally above the organic search results on the left. First position is great if you have a high enough budget to beat your competition for that keyword, if you have built search history with a highly ranked website, if you are bidding on uncompetitive terms, or if you are willing to take an initial loss.

Is it true that position and volume often go hand and hand? Yes, however, the important thing to note is that although high positioning often correlates with high volume, it may not be the best way to measure the performance of the campaign.

We optimize for performance. The goal of your PPC campaign is to get targeted traffic to your site. You want as many people to view your site as possible with your allocated budget and you want those visits to convert into leads or sales. When we set the bid for a keyword we are trying to get the most visibility possible throughout an entire day. The more visibility your ad gets, the higher the potential for conversions. The possibility for a conversion to occur in eighth position with ten clicks is much higher than the possibility for a conversion in first position with three clicks.

Often I am asked by clients to make them number one no matter what. My question to them is, “What is more important: remaining visible throughout the day or only getting a few clicks in first position?” The answer seems simple, yet the question occurs frequently. Remember, position is nothing more than a predictor of how much traffic you are going to receive. It is true that more people click on the first ad than on the twenty-fifth ad, but if you don’t have the budget for more clicks at that high cost you are probably better off lower on the page. If your budget has no limits, by all means set those bids high. But keep in mind, performance is not guaranteed and neither is maintaining that position.

Your position is going to vary throughout the day because of the constant live auction system ads are run under. Ad placement will shift depending on how many people are bidding against you or how many people have hit their budget by 4PM so their ads stopped showing. Positioning is also going to vary as you continue to build up your quality score. You may set bids at a level that keeps you between sixth and seventh position and then in a month or two see that position has risen without raising the bids. Position is finicky and unreliable. This is why we stress performance over position.

Anyone can raise bids sky high and get positioning up. It takes a professional to optimize for performance and get the best position and visibility for your individual campaign.

We may be the #1 ranked search marketing firm by Inc. 500, but not necessarily #1 for all our terms in Google.

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Word on the web is professional content is back in vogue, and amateur content, specifically the half-hearted drivel riddled with misinformation, is out.

Good riddance, I say. It’s not always easy to distinguish yourself from the crowd of professional and not so professional writers out there. It takes work, guts, insanely long hours, caffeine, research, creativity, and alcohol. Lots of it. Preferably 80 proof, well-aged, or imported. Lots of it.

Finally, once you think you’ve made it - and as a writer, “made it” means something along the lines of not having to eat ramen noodles anymore, moving out of your parents house, and upgrading that 1986 Toyota Celica with the peeling paint that you’ve been driving around since your sophomore year in college to something a little nicer and more reliable - you soon realize there will always be someone younger, wiser, more hip, more experienced, or better informed coming up from behind.

This realization will make you feel like you are losing your edge. You will get depressed. You will cry. You will take up smoking and realize you hate it. You will start dressing like a Goth and realize it is dumb. You will cry. You will sleep for weeks. You will cry. Eventually, however, and only after much deliberation (writers love to deliberate), you will come to accept that the race to stay ahead of the competition is back on, and, in fact, that it never really ended (alcohol helps with this step, in particular).

Now, once you accept this fact of creative life (and life in general, for that matter), as long as that competition consists of experienced pros and industry gurus, fine. Competition is healthy, hard work is good for you, and stagnation, professional or otherwise, should be avoided at all costs.

However, when writing for the web, your competition often consists of a large body of ill-informed, amateur hacks taking weak shots in the dark, invading your beloved forum with poorly-researched opinions, error-laden articles, and hastily formed ideas. And you may find yourself asking, “Is it really worth it?”

Lucky for me, and others who make a living crafting online content, a shift seems to be underway as I write this. It seems the seasoned writer is back in demand - and the rookie scribes are on their way out. The cause of the shift? It is likely two-fold. On one hand, web professionals and dot.com CEOs have finally realized the quality of content on their respective web properties largely dictates how much they can charge for advertising. On the other hand, web users are demanding more from the online experience. Add those two things together and the result is an increased need for well-written, reliable, and engaging content.

As writer Tony Dokoupil explains in “Revenge of the Expert,” a recent Newsweek web exclusive:

Fueling all this podium worship is the potential for premium audiences—and advertising revenue. “The more trusted an environment, the more you can charge for it,” says Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis, a former AOL executive who was previously involved with several Web start-ups. It’s also easier to woo advertisers with the promise of controlled content than with hit-and-miss blog blather. “Nobody wants to advertise next to crap,” says Andrew Keen, author of “The Cult of the Amateur,” a jeremiad against the ills of the unregulated Web. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/119091/page/1)

So there you have it, people. Writers, turn on your Macs. Get out your pens. Pour the shots.

The race is on.

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Sorry, that’s our secret cocktail sauce on my face. Let me wipe that off.

My name is Scott Elling and I am the Director of Performance Marketing for Wpromote. For one tiny moment each Friday I will expose myself to light, share a shrimp nugget (I love shrimp, you don’t even know) and then it’s back to the shadowy world of selling other companies products (aka affiliate marketing).

Hurricane Google, best friend or worst enemy? You choose.

If you want to be a successful affiliate marketer listen carefully…

Board up those sites, reinforce those pages and watch the Google Hurricane wipe out your competition!

How?

Ask yourself this:

a) Would ANY user, if made aware of your affiliate relationship want to go to youraffiliatesite.com rather than directly to the merchant?

And

b) Would your site remain an orderly, logical, and aesthetically consistent collection of value and usefulness if you removed the affiliate pages/links?

Make “value-add” happen, or your site will be given a -thin- evaluation and the winds of Google will send you anywhere but Kansas.

Forrest Gump + Last minute Wizard of Oz reference = first disastrous company blog post.

I need to get back to Performing so I’ll leave you with this:

“Though initially Forrest had little success, after finding his boat the only surviving boat in the area after Hurricane Carmen, he begins to pull in huge amounts of shrimp and uses it to buy an entire fleet of shrimp boats.”

I won’t be sharing the secret shrimp cocktail recipe with you, but throw those nets overboard enough times, in enough places and you’ll find the secret ingredients yourself and the sauce will taste oh so good!

To your success,
Scott

PS. Team Performance is the proud recipient of the Horsebear for Excellence Award this week!

Check out our team photo:

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My name is Aaron Kronis and I work for Wpromote in the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) division.

I just arrived home to Los Angeles late last night after spending the past three days in Austin, Texas for the SXSW Interactive Media conference.
I was there to film an episode of ‘RockStartup‘ after winning a contest from Shoemoney and Izea.

Everyone was there from all the major (and minor wannabe) companies, where the right application just might take off, if launched properly. I learned about several interesting new companies and met a lot of people from different, well known groups. One of the funnier things I was asked to do (prior to receiving the prize money and hotel key) was to wear a white t-shirt and ask all the bloggers to sign it with their sites and get their business cards after having them do something for the show, like beat box or something similar.

This was where I got a whole bunch of business cards from the folks in the ‘bloghouse’ located in a room accessible only by a secret elevator in the convention center, separated from the other normal elevators. Hey, it’s not every day that someone like Guy Kawasaki pays a woman he knows twenty bucks to find out who I am and write on me!

(photos by Jeremy Schoemaker)

Being involved in the SEO side of things, I’ll discuss some of the things I’ve noticed lately about the ‘movers and shakers’ in the industry. As I meet new people who are in the world of blogging, SEO and blog monetization, it occurred to me to start paying attention to what sites people actually use. Comparing the business cards of the many people I met showed that a lot of the serious folks are all using several things along with different types of cards. I saw a lot of ‘moo cards’ showing up lately (the smaller ones that look like a stick of gum):

1. flickr
2. AIM
3. twitter
4. skype
5. linkedin
6. their own blogs
7. gmail
8. facebook

One of the newer things I found out about at this conference was ‘utterz.com‘ - a service that allows you to blog from your mobile phone by emailing a picture, then making a phone call and leaving a voice message that will end up on your blog in a single post, providing both actions take place within ten minutes of each other.

I also was able to sneak into a session where the artist Moby was discussing his music licensing for film and television. I learned that he is very philanthropic in his ways with a FREE site for film students to use his music called mobygratis.com that doesn’t charge anything for licensing for students, unless the film makes money, in which case the royalties go to the Humane Society. He was an entertaining speaker and seemed like a good person, which can be hard to find in the dying, cutthroat music industry.

All in all, it was very interesting to meet a lot of these blogger types and rock out with them. Along with the Izea film crew for RockStartUp, we even got to attend a Rock Band (the video game) party at club Six.

photo by Leora

I was happy to sing and enjoy the event VIP style, with open bar and lots of music and blogger types in attendance, along with the owner of the Mavericks.

Until next time,

Your friendly neighborhood Rockstar SEO

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Affiliate marketing. Talk about a buzz word in today’s internet scene. It’s one of those things that a lot of entrepreneurs, and everyone else trying to make a buck on the internet, want to get their hands into. Affiliate marketing, to be specific, is advertising the products or services of another company and getting paid for the results you generate.

Affiliate marketing is a sexy concept; in reality, it is not an easy thing to do. Because the barriers to entry in affiliate marketing are next to nothing, thousands of affiliate marketers are vying for the same slice of the affiliate marketing pie. Let’s take the example of the affiliate online shopping mall. You sign up for a site, it sells millions of products – how can this not resonate well with consumers? But with sites like Amazon, Buy, Overstock and Ebay dominating the market, there just isn’t a realistic way to make a cookie-cutter shopping mall or auctioning site perform well like you might have once been able to accomplish. There’s just no reason people would choose www.onsale.com over the same product at Amazon. Your prices won’t be able to go lower (or that much lower) and they have name branding, loyalty and perhaps most importantly, trust. These types of sites might sure sound like they should be fantastic because you can go to one site and find just about anything you might ever want but the problem is that the market is too diluted. There are thousands of people trying to do the same exact thing you are and your cumulative efforts will keep any single one of you from capturing the market and making a substantial profit. Things that are too good to be true typically are.

If you are even going to try and successfully run an online shopping site, for example, you need to focus on a few key items, and try and build out a good website with a lot of content. Therein lies one of the other biggest problems with online shopping sites. Sure, they are visually appealing sometimes, with just graphics and prices of all the items you might want, but that type of site layout lacks text based information (content) which sincerely hurts your ability to advertise with Google and Yahoo. You just can’t have a site that is thousands of products, all in image format that lack any text but a product name, and expect for the search engines to know what you are trying to do. It’s just too broad and covers too many bases for them to do anything with but give you a low quality score and ranking.

If you want to become a successful affiliate marketer, then you have to start thinking like one. You need to discover a niche market, or figure out a way to take something already done and do it better. The best affiliate marketers are ones that are creative because let’s face it, the definition of affiliate marketing is marketing a product or service someone else is already selling. You won’t have much success running a site that is a cookie cutter because there just isn’t anything to capture people over your competition. You need to spend time and effort to make this work. Make a great website you are proud of with lots of unique content, try your best to stand out against your competition, find creative ways to advertise, and pick a market that isn’t just trying to be an imitation of something that is very established like and all in one shop, or an auctioning site.

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Hello and welcome to the inaugural blog entry from Wpromote’s Account Development Team! Each and every Tuesday from now on, you can expect nuggets of wisdom and comedic gold from Josh, Holly, Christian, Jared, Marissa, or myself.

(Above L to R: Jeff, Holly, AJ, Christian, and Josh)

When Josh, the Director of Account Development, told us we were supposed to write a weekly blog during one of our morning meetings last week, the announcement was met with confusion: what could we post that you, our dear readers, would want to read? Obviously, keyword lists and ad text (our specialties) would not hold the interest of any audience, and we couldn’t start posting “How To” guides without revealing the trade secrets our business is built upon. So then, what?

We decided to table the topic and return to it at the end of the meeting. As we went around the room, each giving an update of the accounts we were working on and the questions and comments we had, it became clear there was no shortage of possible blog topics. One team member mentioned a hilarious Google ad they stumbled upon, which reminded another of an ad they saw that made absolutely no sense, while yet another recalled once seeing an active ad with the description line “will change this later.” Another team member raised a concern that when they did some test searches on a campaign they recently built, mismatched ads were triggered by broad matched keywords in a different ad group.

All of a sudden, blog topic ideas were flowing and the prospect of writing a weekly entry seemed an exciting, rather than daunting, task. In the future, our posts may range greatly in length and subject matter, but will always be an interesting read. Ideally, they will provide a forum for discussion with people in the industry, but always be enjoyable to any casual reader. You can expect posts about funny and/or poorly written text ads, discussion about the pros and cons of different keyword match types, Google vs. Yahoo comparisons, industry news, and plenty more. While we won’t be showing you how to make campaigns as Perfect* as ours, we can certainly provide plenty of entertaining examples of what NOT to do!

So once again, welcome to the exciting world of Wpromote’s Account Development Team! If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like to see discussed in this blog, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. See you next Tuesday!

Regards,

Jeff + Account Development

* That’s right, I said Perfect! With a capital P.

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Last night, Entretech honored ten** distinguished, emerging companies in the Los Angeles area at the 5th Annual PriceWaterhouseCoopers Entretech Entrepreneurship Awards. Among the companies recognized was Wpromote, which received only the second Entrepreneurial Spirit Award in the five years that the ceremonies have been held.

Located this year at the Jonathan Town Club in Downtown Los Angeles, the Entretech Entrepreneurship Awards were created to honor deserving tech firms in the Los Angeles area that have demonstrated success and promise in the ever-expanding field of technology. The finalists for the awards were all innovative and impressive and, without sounding too cliché, I was flattered that Wpromote was chosen to share space with them on the same docket. Truly, we were proud to have been in attendance, much less to have received an award from this remarkable consortium.

In actuality, this award belongs to Michael Mothner, our fearless founder and sassy CEO, whose actual entrepreneurial spirit begot Wpromote in 2001. However, being fearless and sassy every day is no short order, and so Mothner had accidentally scheduled his relaxing trip to Cabo San Lucas on the same day as the awards ceremony. Choosing between accepting an honor at the Jonathan Club and going to an exclusive resort in Cabo: these are the tough decisions that Mothner faces that separate him from the pack of ordinary CEOs.

As Mothner would not be able to attend the presentation, he decided to send Michael Stone, Wpromote’s VP of Sales, and yours truly, the VP of Client Services. You might think, “Wow, what an honor,” and you wouldn’t be wrong; I thought, “Wow, free dinner!” and jumped at the opportunity. On Wednesday, the day before the presentation, Mothner let Stone and me know that we would be presenting a slide show that he had made a week earlier detailing Wpromote’s brief but exciting history since its inception in 2001. “Oh, and, by the way,” Mothner added, “you only have five minutes, so cut out a few slides and go ahead and try to be entertaining.”

Thanks, buddy. Noted.

Thursday, the day of the awards, was spent penned up in my office with Stone, deciding how to slice and dice Mothner’s original speech and how to feign charm in front of what would be an intimidating collection of wealthy and powerful ladies and gentleman. As soon as we decided we were close enough, we sent in the PowerPoint to Entretech and got back to real work. The hard part was seemingly behind us.

At 5:30, we arrived at the Jonathan Club, dressed to the nines and ready to rock. The valet took Stone’s keys and we strutted cavalierly through the doors of the Jonathan Club. Crossing over that threshold was a lot less like entering an esteemed establishment, rather, a lot more like entering a time machine. The Jonathan Club, much like Ron Burgundy’s apartment, contained many leather-bound books and smelled of rich mahogany. Gold leaf was, in a word, prevalent. Cell phones, considered gauche, were not allowed on the premises. It didn’t look like a place where exceedingly wealthy individuals would gather; it looked like a place where they would gather only on “special” occasions. Needless to say, it’s a heck of a club they have over there and I was beginning to feel intimidated.

Undaunted by just about everything, Stone decided to check in with the host of the event to make sure that they knew that:

a) Michael Mothner would not be there,

b) Stone and I would both be presenting,

c) our PowerPoint presentation had been received.

The answer to these questions were, “No,” “No,” and “I don’t know, check with the AV guy.” The AV guy’s answer, unsurprisingly, was “No.” Luckily, our handy-dandy wallet-sized USB card, courtesy of the kind folks at Google, had the presentation on it, along with the MP3s for All that Remains’ epic metal album “The Fall of Ideals.”

“You can just go ahead and ignore that,” I said to the AV guy.

After we got everything squared away with our PowerPoint presentation, we tried to explain the situation that Michael Stone and I would be presenting in Mothner’s stead. Due to an email mix up, we were told that only one of us would be allowed to present. Translation: one of us was going to have to learn the other’s half of the speech. Stone drove us, so that responsibility fell on me.

Awesome.

As we schmoozed the audience, I couldn’t help but think about the new lines I would have to learn. As dinner was served, I was too busy reading Stone’s notes to enjoy what I’m sure was a very expensive cut of steak. My tie felt tighter and so did my chest as my heart pumped away in nervous anticipation. We received word that the Belgian consulate would be presenting our award. Stone replied, “Great! I love their chocolate.” I just looked at this as one more reason to be nervous.

Dessert came and it was some sort of tasty berry pecan tart crumble cake that I was still too jittery to eat. It was seemingly delicious and it was served with a piece of chocolate covered in gold leaf. See? I told you: prevalent! Maybe this was a good omen, because the host then approached us and whispered, “I’m so sorry, but the Belgian consulate will be introducing you with your company’s story, so there is no need to present. Is that alright?”

I’ve never said, “Yes” so quickly in my life. The only thing that I’ve ever done more quickly, in fact, was eat that dessert in front of me right after having said “Yes.” With my nerves now at an all time low, I was content to sit back and enjoy the rest of the evening which was highlighted by presentations from some unbelievably interesting LA-based tech firms.

The award winners besides Wpromote were:

Start Up: Under $1 million:

The Rubicon Project. Fascinating technology that aggregates every content network out there and dynamically chooses the best ads for content-rich sites, providing the most relevant choices for users and maximizing ad revenue for the site.

Emerging: Between $1 and $8 million:

Zag. Innovators in the field of buying cars. Not a lead-gen company, but a direct buyer to dealer interface that makes the process of purchasing a new automobile less of a risk and less of a hassle.

Growth: Over $8 million:

eHarmony. Right, like you don’t already know these guys.

All in all, it was a wonderful night and we are truly indebted to the good folks at Entretech for their generosity toward, recognition of and faith in Wpromote. We were incredibly honored to be included and proud to represent all of the hard-working people at Wpromote who make opportunities like this a possibility. Go team, go!

**The Finalists were, in alphabetical order: Calando Pharmaceuticals, Central Desktop, EdgeCast, eHarmony, Green Dot, Nami Media, the Rubicon Project, Vantage Media and Zag. Wpromote’s award was received in a separate, unique category.

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