Prompted by a recent article on Yahoo and the email chain that followed, I have decided to further explore health in the workplace. The Yahoo article described alternatives to diet soda consumption offering fewer calories and no artificial sweeteners. More bluntly, drinks which are better for you.

There are many myths and misconceptions about what is “good” for you. The “8 glasses of water per day” is a perfect example of this. While drinking 8 glasses of water is not bad for you, there is no scientific rational for this exact amount, nor is it clear where this concept even originated.

Soda is an easy target when declaring common food and beverages bad for your health. I think we all realize that soda is probably not the best drink for a healthy lifestyle, but c’mon! It’s so good! Once it hits your lips it’s so good! The main reason those in the know warn against soda consumption is because of its content of high fructose corn syrup. A common sugar substitute, HFCS is found in almost every food product imaginable today. It is an extremely cost effective artificial sweetener, but it is high in calories and provides almost no nutritional value. Soda is also very acidic, which will cause your body to strip calcium from your bones in order to balance out your internal ph levels. We have a lot of soda here at work and if somehow this article persuades you to swear off soda you may say to yourself, “But what about all of the extra soda we have? I don’t want it to go to waste.” Fear not, I say! For all is not lost! According to numerous household cleaning Websites, soda can clean your toilet, eliminate rust from a car bumper and remove grease from clothing. Whew, dodged a bullet there! Sugar definitely gets a bad rap these days, but it’s really what kind of sugar and where it comes from that matters.

An absolutely wonderful alternative to processed foods are all natural delicious treats. Below are a few great natural snacks for work. You may never have heard of these foods before so I will list them with brief health benefits below:

· Apples - Vitamin A and C, Antioxidants

· Grapes - Vitamins A, C and P

· Bananas - Vitamins A, B1, B2, B5 and C, Potassium

· Peaches – Vitamin C

· Strawberries – Extremely rich source of Vitamin C

· Almonds – Folate, Vitamin E and A, Niacin

· Cashews – Vitamin K, Folate

· Peanuts – Niacin, Vitamin E, Folate

· Pistachios – Vitamin A, Folate

· Carrots – Vitamin A, C, B6, and Niacin

You will receive the most health benefits from eating the above mentioned foods raw and by themselves. So even though carrots and ranch are delicious, you will lose much of the benefit with this crazy concoction.

Besides eating and drinking right what else can be done to improve health in the workplace? Exercise of course!

Now, it may not always be practical to do laps around the office, but much can be accomplished at ones desk. It is also important to get up and walk around. In our case, foosball is not merely a way to take a quick break, but actually improves our health! We have to play foosball in order to stay healthy. This is science in action, people. (All mentions of “science in action” do not refer to the actual field of science and should not be interpreted as fact or anything resembling an informed opinion) All of this healthy goodness does not come without a price. A common side effect of intense “foos” action is the development of massive forearm muscles. I have personally noticed disfigured co workers from this devastating consequence of science in action.

But seriously, cubicle exercises are a great way to get your blood flowing and draw intrigue from your fellow workers or disgust if happen to love a solid lunge workout. Feel the Burn! Simple stretches can do wonders for your day. While sitting at your desk, try some shoulder rolls, neck rolls, upper body stretches, wrist stretches, and practice the 20-20-20 rule. To prevent eyestrain, every 20 minutes take your focus away from your computer screen and focus on something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds.

Tea is better than Coffee. There I said it. I can already hear the sounds of angels dying. Sure coffee tastes good, smells great, and helps you get through the day, but what about life? Tea, no matter the kind, is packed with antioxidants and disease fighting compounds. Tea has been shown to lower heart disease and stroke rates among daily drinkers. It also lowers LDL “Bad” cholesterol, boosts your metabolism, slows the growth of tumors, improves skin, protects against Parkinson’s disease, and even delays the onset of diabetes. It also contains no calories. To be fair, coffee exhibits some of these same qualities, but tea is still better. Science in action!

Exercise and diet have even been shown to lower stress levels, reduce and the risk of sickness, and can lead to increased productivity at work. An apple a day really can keep the boss away! I mean doctor.

So, next time you are reaching for that bag of chips or standing at the vending machine deciding to go with a Diet Coke or Sunkist Orange Soda, totally go Sunkist! Its delicious! I kid. Instead brew yourself a nice cup of green or black tea and have a red delicious. Who knows, it may just save your life. Also, do the stretches at your desk. Lunge Attack!

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I don’t care how much you love roast beef, garlic bread, square pizza, baby corns and cake for only $9.99, the eat anything and everything business model does not translate well online.

An easy target, Yahoo! is a confused company doing a little bit of everything (and not that well) while Google focuses on search and prints money to the tune of billions.

Recently, I had the privilege of consulting for a very sharp woman with a successful offline business who’s looking to take her success online.

To her credit, she contacted me before getting too deep and it’s a good thing, she was headed to buffet hell. After an hour I was finally able to wrap my head around the 6 things she was trying to do.

Online you have seconds to effectively communicate what you do and why I (the visitor) should do it.

The prospect of making money online is exciting and it’s easy to carried away with 20 products and 10 services. Each page of your site must have a clear purpose and the content must support this purpose, not distract.

Here’s a couple of quick solutions to getting focused -

a) Ask friends, family and enemies to play around on your site - observe what they are doing why they are doing it.  Ask lots of questions and encourage brutal honesty. What you think is obvious, is not so obvious to another.

b) Don’t be too cute or smart. Get to the point and make it about me and how I stand to benefit!

If you wanna do well online, stay away from the buffet style site and focus on making the best damn meal ever.

Be the big fish in the small pond.

To your success,
Scott

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A recently-posted YouTube video featured eight teenagers from Florida beating another teenage girl to a state of unconsciousness. Why in the world would these girls post this incriminating video, the evidence, confirmation, and proof of their guilt online? It seems completely illogical, but they may have had the perfect plan.

Did they post it so they could have a “hit” video on YouTube? Homemade “stars” have been making it big in the real world, not just on the Internet, and these eight attackers took their “stardom” to a whole new level. The violence in this video was brutal. Clips and pictures from the video have been shown on several television stations, newspapers, and websites. The teenage attackers were arrested and charged with beating the 16-year-old teenage girl in order to post the attack online, but nevertheless, their video made national headlines.

Thankfully, the proper authorities made the arrests. But this incident raises an interesting question: who is at fault for this explosive situation? Some people blame the attackers for posting it. These girls clearly stepped way over the line in terms of morals and ethics. Some people blame YouTube for allowing the attack to be posted on the Internet. Better screening of the videos being posted on the site should have been undertaken to prevent this type of incident. Even others say that the public and media is to blame for giving the video the attention that it was intended to receive.

Legally, YouTube is not to blame. It is exempt thanks to a 1996 anti-pornography law which includes a provision stating that Internet service providers are not publishers because they only retransmit information provided by other sources. Thus, YouTube is technically innocent. The violent video has been pulled from YouTube, and in the video’s place are several self-published discussions and opinions about this “animalistic attack.”

I don’t think anyone would doubt that the girls involved in the attack are definitely responsible for their violent acts, but perhaps more at fault lies with the media and the public. It seems like these attackers got exactly what they wanted from posting the video – PUBLICITY. They’ve now had far more than their 15 minutes worth of fame. I’ve read about them on the Internet, seen them on the news – I think I’m even going to see one of them on the Dr. Phil show (way to post bail for a criminal Dr. Phil).

The media predictably falls back on its conception of being an objective party, one that always observes and reports, but never causes. By publicizing incidents like this video, they implicitly condone the violence involved. But bailing out the criminals to put them on TV? That is entering a new realm.
Dr. Phil bails out accused ringleader in Teen Attack - F

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The ongoing performance of a campaign is often determined in the long run by the landing page quality.

Google has three main factors in determining an advertiser’s positioning within their algorithm: bid, historical click through rate and quality score. From an account manager’s perspective, there are various factors on our end that contribute to the success of a campaign, however, most reside in the landing page quality. The most common issue we run into is inadequate websites as far as relevant content, navigable links and load time to name a few. Google created these guidelines to make the user experience as amiable as possible. Therefore, the most important ways to improve your landing page quality and in turn, decrease your minimum bids, increase your positioning and quality score, is to take the following into consideration on your website:

1. Relevant and Original Content
2. Transparency
3. Navigability

As a search engine user, I am often deterred when I enter a website and one or more of these factors are not in place. This is directly related to the bounce rate seen across most websites, which could be drastically reduced with simple yet effective changes.

An example that we have recently experienced involving landing page quality was with affiliate websites on Google. Google is now cracking down on all affiliate sites due to their poor landing page quality and undifferentiated traits on their sites. Consequently, these sites are being given a low quality score which is the direct cause of poor performance and high minimum bids. To alleviate this issue, advertisers can create a unique website with unique content or turn completely to Yahoo and MSN to meet their advertising needs.

Clearly, the integrity of the user experience is what is at stake in this ever-changing form of advertising, and having reputable advertisers only creates a sound experience overall. Landing page quality is a win-win for all parties involved, and can only enhance campaign performance making a solid long-term investment. Advertisers who wish to succeed in paid search should make sure to pay as much attention to the destination of the paid search traffic as to the placement and quality of the ads sending it.

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I’ve been asked this question by several friends and colleagues as well as by several clients who own numerous domains and don’t understand what is the smartest way to utilize them.

First off, it is generally best to take the oldest domain you can find (based on its ‘creation date’ in WHOIS or from the Wayback.org results) that FITS with your site’s keyword targeting.

For example, if you have a great old domain, say runningshoes.com that was registered in 1994 and you also have woodenbarrels.com that was registered in 2005 it really depends on WHAT you are selling.

The goal is to rank high for things that your target consumer is already typing into Google now.

So if you are selling ‘Wooden Barrels’, then the choice domain to build around has got to be woodenbarrels.com.

Okay, so with that said, if you still own the runningshoes.com site and can’t do anything with it, simply 301 the site to woodenbarrels.com and forget about it until Nike offers you thousands to buy it.

Onto your barrels now - here is the question: Should I buy woodenbarrels.net, woodenbarrels.org, barrelswooden.com, thewoodenbarrel.com, woodenbarrel.com, woodenbarrel.net, woodenbarrel.org?

Are you ready for the real answer here?

Here is the catch:

If you really want to rank first for “wooden barrels” and drive traffic to www.woodenbarrels.com, it isn’t buying the domains and forwarding them that is the key here. The real key is your competitors and preventing them from owning domains with the keywords you want to rank for.

So, go ahead and buy any domains that a competitor could potentially purchase and compete against you with, especially if your main keyword phrase is in it.

Initially you may think, “I don’t have to worry, I have woodenbarrels.com”. Then when you see Pay-Per-Click ads for ‘woodenbarrel.com’ coming up for searches on “Wooden Barrels” you’ll kick yourself for saving the $9.99 in the decision not to buy the domain when it was available.

Another alternative(which you should be doing anyways):

Build a really really great site, with awesome content, updated daily with meaningful information related to your topic and become the authority on Wooden Barrels. In conjunction with SERIOUS link-building, that’s the secret to ranking.

Your friendly neighborhood Rockstar SEO

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The United States, in all its glory, is seriously starting to lag behind other countries in the quality and quantity of internet service being provided. As the leaders of the free world, one would assume this would be a bread and butter thing for us to champion, considering we created the internet in the first place. Why then, when faced with the facts and numbers, are we so terribly behind? One might argue it’s mostly a financial situation. For us to be able to “upgrade” our internet capabilities, it is going to require large scale improvements and renovations to a backbone that is decades old and in serious need of some lovin’. If we don’t do this, and do this soon, we are going to quickly find ourselves trailing far, far behind.

When looking at any sort of data, it is honestly just scary. Japan leads the world with fastest internet available. They have the fastest and lowest unit costs for broadband, according to recent data from the OECD. In the land of the rising sun, you can enjoy costs per megabit per second over four times lower than that of the US. This kind of information is just downright troubling to me, considering I work in an internet related business and probably wouldn’t be able to function as a civilized human being without access to the internet. What is worse yet is that this data could possible make people theorize, “Well, maybe Japan just really has their internet situation on lockdown.” Unfortunately, this is not the case. The US ranks a pathetic 15^th place in this department, with countries like France, Korea, and Sweden nestled in second, third and fourth place (respectively).

To take matters to an even more frightening place, all one would need to do is compare the above data to the fact that we have the largest amount of total broadband subscribers. As of June 2007 the US led all countries surveyed in terms of broadband subscribers with over 66.2 million. The second closest amount of subscribers was in Japan with about 27.2 million. You are trying to tell me that the people who have the fastest and cheapest internet also have less than half the amount of subscribers than we do? While I know that the US is a lot larger a country and that an obvious disparity will be present, the gap just seems far too staggering. My God in heaven, there is something just wrong with this picture.

I’m not quite sure what it is going to take to get the changes we need, but I do know that we are in desperate need of them. If our country wants to remain on top of things, we are going to have to either independently find ways to beef up the internet capabilities we have, or someone is going to need to foot the bill so we can start getting the ball rolling. We are in the middle of the internet age and the time is nigh to start acting like it.

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There are a plethora of mysteries hidden in Google & Yahoo’s search and advertising algorithms. We here in Account Development have long struggled to understand the precise function of the almighty Keyword Insertion (KWI). KWI is a function which allows a user’s precise search query to be inserted into the headline or body of a text ad. Our research has shown that text ads with KWI have higher Click-Through Rates (CTR) and often perform better than ads without KWI. But in our never-ending quest to write the best ads and build the best campaigns possible, we are constantly running into more precise and complex questions about how (and if) this “Keyword Insertion” function really works.

Let’s review the three Keyword Match Types in Google: Broad, Phrase, and Exact. Exact is rather self explanatory: if you have “used car” as an exact match keyword, it will only be triggered by a search query of “used car.” Any additional words or characters in or outside that search will prevent it from bringing up the ad. So a person searching “used black car” or “black used car” will not see the corresponding text ad for the Exact Match keyword “used car.” Phrase Match is slightly more lenient, allowing words to be tacked on either end of the keyword, as long as the precise word order is preserved. “Black used car” will trigger the phrase match for “used car,” but a search of “used black car” will not.

Then there’s Broad Match, or what I like to call “the necessary evil.” Broad Match is the fail-safe in your keyword lists. If you sell all types of used cars, but don’t want to (or forget to) list every make, model, year, or color, Broad Match *should* be your catch-all for any searches that include those variables. Unfortunately, Broad Match is imperfect by nature. For all the variables that it catches, there will be a few you wish it wouldn’t. Plus, on some longer-tailed keywords, it will occasionally drop one or more of the words, catching inaccurate traffic. All these factors become exponentially more complex when Keyword Insertion comes into play.

The double edged sword of Keyword Insertion is that the increased Click-Through Rate does not necessarily translate to a higher conversion rate. If a text ad headline more closely resembles what a user searched, they will often click on that ad. When it turns out you don’t actually sell “used black car seat covers” or whatever, they will not purchase anything from you, and the click was nothing more than wasted budget. When building large keyword lists meant to capture a very broad range of keywords, one must be especially careful with the KWI. Take the following text ad for example:

That’s a screen shot of an active text ad on Google. The headline clearly has nothing to do with the intended message. I really have no idea how something like this could slip by the person who built or manages this account. My only guess is that the account holder ran a large concatenation and this little gem slipped through editing. Unless there was some sort of malfunction between the Broad Match function and KWI function?

This rather extreme example only highlights the need to test your ads and watch them closely for errors. The entrenched opinion that KWI should be used whenever possible is slowly coming into the light of reevaluation. While it may not have the best CTR, a well written static headline will never steer you horribly off course. Always better to be safe than sorry: when in doubt, leave KWI out!

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So, there’s good news and bad news from the Yahoo camp for Microsoft.

The good news is that Yahoo is definitely open to the idea of a buyout.

The bad news is that it’s gonna cost Microsoft much more than they originally anticipated.

Yahoo responded to Microsoft’s buyout bid by reiterating that the $44.6 billion offer undervalued the search engine and online mega-portal. Despite the fact that Yahoo share prices have recently dipped to well below the offered price of $31/share, Yahoo is confident that they can get more out of a potential buyer. Other names that have been discussed as interested in Yahoo include News Corp. and Time Warner Inc.

Personally, I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of Yahoo becoming the property of Microsoft. The effects on paid search would be difficult to predict. Many remember that Yahoo and Microsoft shared Overture as a paid search provider years ago and, since Microsoft broke away from Yahoo in mid-2006, the companies have moved in different directions in terms of the quality of their search products.

Although Google’s AdWords product is unmatched in terms of usability and efficiency, I think that it would be fair to say that Yahoo, especially since its move in 2007 to the “Panama” platform, has made significant strides to improve. Whereas Overture and Yahoo Search Marketing in its infancy were very difficult to use and were often easily ignored by users who frequently dedicated their entire search budget to Google, nowadays, we find that Yahoo is, at the very least, an excellent supplement to an active Google AdWords account and, in some cases, a flat-out better provider of quality traffic.

Microsoft’s MSN adCenter product, on the other hand, continues to baffle users and agencies alike. With an inefficient user interface, an inability to opt out of unpredictable traffic drivers such as a-list, and a still developing support staff, Microsoft has, in many ways, regressed even from the days of Overture. Who’s to say that Microsoft, despite its war chest of funding, wouldn’t simply degrade the quality of Yahoo’s product in the event of a takeover, leaving Google without any real competition? It’s a frightening possibility.

It’s unclear whether Microsoft will balk at Yahoo’s demand for a better offer or whether this was an expected move from the opposition in what will inevitably be a buyout. For search marketers, though, I feel that there is some cause for optimism in either scenario. If Microsoft does balk and Yahoo remains independent, I feel that it really puts the pressure on Yahoo to continue to invest in their search marketing product in an effort to narrow the usability gap between Google AdWords and itself. In the event of a takeover, I would hope that Microsoft would be more likely to integrate with Yahoo’s current model or upgrade their current system to include some of the improvements that Yahoo’s system offers. Microsoft is many things, but it is not a stupid company; we could potentially end up with a product superior to the current Yahoo and MSN products that integrates both engines.

The ball is back in Microsoft’s court. Unless they are ready to pony up more cash, Yahosoft remains purely fictitious.

**Update: There was an interesting BusinessWeek article backing Yahoo’s play of holding out.  Check it out.

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I don’t agree that skateboarding was ever a fad, it is still around and people have made an honest living doing this activity which is now featured in the X-games and is a now a multi-million dollar industry.

I can confidently say that skateboarding is a sport that is here to stay. However, when skateboarding first came around there were many naysayers who called it a ‘fad’, even comparing it to the Hula Hoop or Pogo Stick and many skateboarders had a rough time trying to justify the time they spent doing it. Check out Dogtown and Z-boyz or the late Heath Ledger playing ‘Skipperboy’ Skip Engblom in the feature film Lords of Dogtown for some background on what the guys went through in the early days of skateboarding.

I know I used to come to California for just that (see photo), but now I’m an SEO manager out here so it is my job to learn about new services out there that may help drive new traffic to the sites I’m promoting, but at what cost?

So with someting like ‘TWITTER’, I wonder if my time is better spent commenting on do-follow blogs (which pass PageRank without the ‘nofollow’ attribute in comment links) and other link-building initiatives?

Recently, I’ve seen and taken part in some discussions regarding Twitter and its role in SEO. Obviously if you have a lot of people following your ‘Tweets’ (messages similar to Instant Messaging(IM) but that go out to everyone on your list, sort of like a Reply-All on IM to all your following subscribers) then you may be able to get people to frequent your latest happenings online, such as blog posts, special offers or even have them get in on some interesting commenting discussions.

So, on to more about this phenomenon. Apparently Twitter isn’t going away anytime soon. Although there are lots people who think that it is very annoying, the debate is open which already helps anyone who is pro-twitter by exposure. See this article on MSNbc called ‘Twitter Nation: Nobody cares what you are doing‘ which touches on how some folks maybe just don’t understand Twitter, or do but don’t want to know what this ‘micro-blogging’ service is telling us every second about the folks you are following.

It really seems to be gaining momentum with the latest being a new partnership with MTV which may make this year’s event that much stranger. I also find that there seems to be small community out there promoting all these ‘new sociable networks’ as I’m running into the same people all the time now at things like the interactive SXSW conference. i.e. utterz and mashable. See this interesting post about the top 10 ‘most beautiful social networks‘

So for those who say that Twitter IS in fact a fad, I have to tend to think maybe they just can’t seem to get anyone to follow them. I have about 7 followers @kronis and I could fall into that category, but I am lately using its ‘direct message’ feature a lot to get in touch with people who I know are online after I see them ‘tweet’.

Usage: when you make a twitter message and would like it to privately go to someone on your follow list, just enter: “d username message”. This is identical to Instant Messaging and works well, so now that you know how it works, try it out and follow some ‘tweets’ or rants or promote your next foosball tournament or one-act play via your mobile phone, as this is killer for your iPhone.

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Being new to the SEM industry, I was intrigued to learn Pay Per Click has a sister, Pay Per Call, who is attracting a great deal of attention within the mobile advertising industry. Whether the younger sister proves to be the more attractive one is yet to be seen.

In short, Pay Per Call is self-explanatory: advertisers pay for phone leads instead of click leads. On March 19th, 2007, mobile advertising giant Medio announced a partnership with Ingenio, a major leader in the Pay Per Call market. As of now Medio has inked deals with cellular carriers T-Mobile & Amp’d for their mobile pay per click services. As the two coalesce, they will offer Pay Per Call advertising on a mobile level. While this all sounds exciting, in my humble opinion, the partners are facing huge obstacles in tapping into this market.

As is with Pay Per Click, the idea is to use highly targeted keywords to reach as specific of an audience as possible. With PPC II, users will be delivered text ads that contain a title, description (sound familiar?) and a phone number. When the user calls the number Ingenio has provided them with, the advertiser is charged a bid rate for the call. While this is a GREAT solution for small business owners without a website, I see three main problems with this strategy.

Number one: when that water pipe burst in your house last night, did you hop on your Amp’d cell phone, get online, and search for a plumber? I think not. If you did, aside from being a huge dork, you probably hopped on your Blackberry or I-phone and searched Google. Let’s see: Medio vs. Google? Number two: the bid rates per call make your neighbor’s home business keyword bids look like chump change. At $2 - $20 per call, those leads better be converting. Number three: PEOPLE DON’T LIKE MOBILE ADS. Released in 2007, ‘Universal McCann conducted a survey among 9,500 people and found that 61% of respondents rejected ads on mobile TV & Internet services.’

While I am in no way, shape, or form opposed to serving niche markets through innovative technology; I do not see PPC II stealing the Beauty Pageant crown from her sexy older sister anytime soon.