Members of the Wpromote staff, like myself, that grew up in Los Angeles’ beautiful South Bay area are deeply familiar with its local paper, the Daily Breeze. The Daily Breeze has been keeping residents of the South Bay in touch with local news in one form or another since 1894 and for those that grew up in here, the Daily Breeze has been a staple in our lives.

On March 22nd, the Daily Breeze’s Muhammed El-Hasan sat down to speak with our fearless leader, Wpromote’s President and CEO Michael Mothner. The purpose of the article was to inform residents of the South Bay of the innovations that are available in the field of online advertising as well as better acquaint them with one of the area’s most exciting online businesses.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Known as search-engine marketing, Wpromote uses its knowledge of how key words typed into online search engines such as Google or Yahoo generate results. Wpromote’s job is to make sure its clients are among the top results.

We at Wpromote wanted to send a “thank you” to our neighbors at the Daily Breeze for taking an interest in our story. Many of us grew up reading local interest stories in the Daily Breeze; it is a special honor to now be a part of one.

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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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For the past few years, Facebook has developed and hosted an NCAA Tournament Pool. The competition was very simple, start your own pool or join an existing one, and compare your picks to those of your friends. Winner gets bragging rights.

Last year, Facebook spiced it up a little. With co-sponsor Geico, the competition offered a hefty prize to the winners.
1st place - $25,000
2nd place - $5,000
3rd place - $1,000

How did it end? A tie.

PicksPal has capitalized on this Facebook tradition by developing it’s own NBA Challenge application. While the user count is just shy of 12,000 total users, the potential of this application is tremendous. When a friend in your network adds the application, a notice is displayed in the daily feed (also the first page users see when they login). This along with word of mouth advertising and invitations to “join my pool” are bound to convert more and more users to the app.

Now where does the potential of Facebook apps come in?

Ever since Facebook opened up its platform to developers, numerous companies including iLike, LinkedIn & RockYou! have jumped aboard and created custom applications for users.

While many developers are creating entertaining and useful applications, there is still a void in that there is little reason for users to actively engage with their applications. It seems that an area of this that developers and the companies are forgetting about is that college students, and Facebook users in general, simply love free stuff. By running applications/contests and offering prizes (maybe even daily prizes), the possibilities for widespread brand name exposure to the facebook demographic become endless. Make the prize cash and integrate it into your current website or marketing goals and you’ve just gained a new avenue to acquiring users and possible sales.

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Tonight concluded what we at Wpromote hope will be only the first of many visits to the Googleplex in the spirit of sharing ideas. That’s right, Michael Mothner “the captain of the good ship Wpromote” and I just got back from the Google Client Forum. This annual get-together is essentially a glorified airing of grievances for agencies and mega-clients to Google.

It’s true that we spend a good amount of time on this blog singing Google’s praises, and deservedly so, make no mistake about it. Google is heads and shoulders above their “competitors”, i.e. Yahoo and MSN. Needless to say, Google’s insatiable desire to improve their phenomenal product is the very characteristic that allows them to out pace their competition. Google’s search for perfection isn’t just a company tag line; they really mean it. Priority #1 on the agenda for Google at the Forum was to find out what they aren’t doing well, what they’re doing that annoys us and what they’re doing that just doesn’t make sense.

Our clients will be happy to know that Michael Mothner and I have kept a record of the complaints that we have received and we made sure to air these concerns to some of the most influential figures at one of the most influential companies in the world. From the woes of expanded broad match to the frustration created by the “all other queries” notice in a search query report; from the inability to collect conversion data by the hour to the problems that continue to plague the content network; from ills of dormant keywords to the lack of communication with interruptions of service…

We covered it all!

I hope that there are two things that our clients can take away from this blog/our trip to Google:

1) We’ve been listening to you,
2) Google just got finished listening to us… and they really listened!

At the end of the day, Wpromote was honored and privileged to be one of only four agencies in the world invited to take part in this Forum. In addition to this, we are all truly indebted to Google for creating an advertising medium through which we can help our clients achieve success. Most importantly, however, we are thankful that Google holds this conference and makes it their mission to ensure that next year the grievances aired will have nothing to do with the ones from 2007 because, ideally, they will have already been addressed, fixed and left behind at that point.

It wasn’t easy to dole out criticism to a company that we ultimately appreciate despite any of their flaws. However, when one looks at the situation from Google’s point of view, it is easy to understand how venerable a company they really are. Google will be fine without our/your feedback; they’ve accomplished so much already and this is undeniable. Therefore, it is even more admirable that they would not only welcome critiques and suggestions but also invent a forum in order to make sure that such advice made it directly to the people who have the power to make systematic changes for the better. Overall, the Google Client Forum was a wonderful experience. Personally, I look forward to working hard for my clients so that we will continue to be thought of as a search marketing authority. Only through this action will we be able to continue to represent our clients and the great ideas that they pose to us on a daily basis.

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So, it seems that all the hubbub over the Gphone was really less about a phone and more about a rethinking of the concept of the mobile phone.

Today, Google formally announced the release of Google Android, an interface that will be completely open source in almost every way imaginable. Cellphones have always been hindered to a degree by their closed interfaces (see the iPhone’s war against the hackers), which was a calculated move by the designers and carriers to ensure that top dollar had to be paid for exclusive, cutting edge designs. Even where technology of cellphones far outpaced what we are used to in the states–in countries such as Japan and Korea, for example–the ability to improve the device you’ve been using to call your friends, take pictures, browse the web and listen to music remained elusive.

The Google Android concept appears to be a step in the completely opposite direction. In a world where openness, compatibility, usability and connectivity are the keys to a products success, the Google Android concept makes a lot of sense. If there is such a high demand to hack the iPhone, after all, isn’t it inevitable that it will eventually happen? If it will eventually happen, doesn’t it make sense to be among the first people on board? Google’s answer is, “Absolutely yes!”

And, in all honesty, what better company to rethink making money in the cellphone industry than the company that showed how powerful and profitable search engines could be as a marketing medium? In an open source world, the money isn’t in the product, the plan or the presentation; it’s in the advertising. All other elements should be honed and perfected by the people, and as the web becomes more and more easy to use while on-the-go, the volume of potential consumers to advertise to should inherently become larger and larger.

A college buddy of mine once pointed out the genius of Pizza Hut to me:

Just when you thought there were no more places to put cheese, Pizza Hut comes up with Stuffed Crust Pizza. For centuries, people loved the cheese, but couldn’t think beyond “extra cheese” when it came to adding more. That’s why the guys behind the Stuffed Crust Pizza were so brilliant.

Something about the way that Google looked at the cellphone and decided to completely rethink it reminded me of my pizza-loving friend in college. How could Google, which had already seemingly perfected search, possibly improve it? By finding a new place for it. But not only did they know where to put it, they’re trying to pioneer the medium by which to do it.

Now, I’m not saying that the Google Android will necessarily revolutionize the way we use our phones or the mobile Internet, however, much like the Stuffed Crust Pizza–whether you love it or hate it–you’ve got to respect the guys who thought to themselves, “You know what? There’s got to be another place that we can put some more cheese!”

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I’m not sure who J.D. Power or his associates really are, however, they are apparently experts at giving out awards to trucks and search engines, among other things. Most recently, J.D. Power & Associates ranked Dogpile the top search engine in terms of customer satisfaction.

For those who are unfamiliar with Dogpile, it is essentially a search engine that takes results from other engines, such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN, and amalgamates them into one list. Within this list there are both organic results as well as ads. Some might feel that this format tricks users into clicking on ads–thereby making money for Dogpile–that they thought were normal organic links. After all, Google, Yahoo! and MSN all display their ads in blue banners along the top and in a small column on the right. Surely, this is the preferred tactic for the majority of users, right?

Maybe not.

If Dogpile has the highest customer satisfaction rating, it means that Dogpile users are getting what they want more often than do Google, Yahoo! and MSN users. Therefore, doesn’t this suggest that people might actually prefer ads to organic listings in many cases? After all, if you are a shopper, ads will be much more helpful whereas if you are doing researcher, organic listings are probably the way to go.

Online advertising is almost a four-letter word. No, not physically–it’s actually a 17-letter or 18-character word, if you include the space–but it often gets treated as if it were. Tell someone that you work in online advertising and their face will scrunch up as if they bit into a lemon. They’ll follow this with a something on the order of, “Oh no! Not those banner and pop-ups; is that you guys?”

“No, no, no!” I’ll respond. “We’re the good guys. We help you find stuff you’re already looking for.” I promise you that your new acquaintance will walk away unconvinced.

So, thank you, Dogpile, for proving that search ads are probably a lot more helpful than people think. Whereas Google, Yahoo! and MSN throw the ads in locations that very few people ever notice, Dogpile treats search ads as if they were as relevant and helpful as an organic listing. And, according to their satisfied customers, they are making a great argument that they might be right!

Of course, it could be posited that Dogpile’s customer satisfaction rating is so high simply because anyone who’s still stubborn enough to use Dogpile instead of the big three is probably doing so because, for whatever reason, they just really really like it.

But I’d like to think that search ads are just a lot more helpful than people give them credit for, so let’s stick with that!

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Yesterday, I was having an issue finding my client’s local listings in the Yahoo! search engine. I have experienced similar problems with Yahoo!’s IP targeting in the past, however, I was still concerned that I wasn’t seeing listings for the Los Angeles DMA. In response to my initial inquiry, I received the following email from a representative at Yahoo! Search Marketing earlier today.

Now, let’s play a game of “What’s Wrong with this Picture.”

Keep in mind, this is an actual email and these are the actual screenshots. Only the private information has been censored or altered in any way.

Oct 10 2007 09:38 PT

Hello Mike,

Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Search Marketing regarding your listings for keywords “laser hair removal” and “laser tattoo removal” not appearing on Yahoo! Search. We are happy to assist you.

We were able to locate your listings online (please see attached screenshots for examples). If you are unable to see your listings, this may be due to your computer’s IP address being incorrectly localized. Our geotargeting system specifically looks for users with IP addresses in the specific regions (”DMAs”) you’ve specified and will only serve to users that match your criteria with a high degree of confidence.

We would like to investigate this matter further on your behalf but request that you supply your specific IP address in order for us to do so. This information is needed to replicate a search conducted within your particular geographic location as you are utilizing our Geotargeting feature to ensure that your listings are only displayed for results within those areas. Please reply directly to this e-mail making sure to include your IP address which can be acquired from such websites as www.whatismyip.com.

Thank you for choosing Yahoo! Search Marketing!

Sincerely,

[censored]
Technical Services
Yahoo! Search Marketing

Here are the screenshots provided, our client’s listings are highlighted in blue. Now, remember what game we’re playing?

I know that these images are difficult to read, but if you have been paying attention, you will have noticed that this is besides the point. After all, how would sending me my Google listings help rectify our visibility issues in Yahoo!?

Now, I know that a situation this ridiculous warrants some doubts, and there isn’t a really solid way to prove that a Yahoo! employee sent me Google results to prove the visibility for my Yahoo! keywords, but I thought that the following screenshot my help add to the credibility of this post:

That’s right, it’s my inbox and although it’s a bit hard to make out, you can clearly see the Yahoo! signature right above the Google screenshot. Now, it would be easy to make this mistake under normal circumstances, and this mistake was not made by our Yahoo! representative (who is nothing short of brilliant, to tell you the truth), but doesn’t this seem like the kind of faux pas that would happen at Yahoo! and never a Google?

I mean, really, you just can’t make this stuff up!

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Seasonal shifts in business are normal for much of the retailing world, and the first thing that jumps to mind is of course the Holiday season, which kicks into full gear on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. On an aside, as an internet marketer, I am far more interested in Cyber Monday, when the e-commerce Christmas season kicks off (to the joy of American employers, the first work day after Thanksgiving).

Everyone knows that Christmas shopping is big business, but what may fly under the radar is exactly how huge the Halloween holiday is. Maybe it is more intriguing to me because it is so fun and impractical it all is, but year after year I am amazed at the sheer girth of the industry. In 2007, it is estimated that Americans will spend $64.82 per person on Halloween costumes, decorations, candy and cards. That is almost 10% above 2006 levels, and sends the total spend on Halloween well north of $5 Billion, a truly phenomenal sum.

Wpromote works with several top Halloween e-commerce sites, and it is amazing to see the volume of searching and shopping for Halloween costumes online. Without going into too much detail but to give you a little insider perspective:

• In the end of September, over a full month before Halloween (and weeks before anyone I know is even thinking about their costumes), just one of our search engine campaigns was generating over 4 million impressions per day, in the tens of thousands of clicks, and hundreds of costumes sold.
• Looking at last year’s data, the costume season peaks around the 24th-27th of October when all of the last minute online shoppers flood the web scrambling for costumes. We expect on those dates this year, we will see upwards of 12-15 million ad impressions daily and sales for a single campaign for a single client pushing $100,000 per day. These are just the sales generated directly from our search campaigns, and independent of their other on or off-line marketing efforts.
• While the retail gurus in general estimate a 10% rise in total Halloween-related spending in 2007, we are seeing numbers suggesting a rise of search-related sales north of 25%.
• While the Christmas season may result in retailers seeing upwards of 40% of their annual sales occurring in a two month window, Halloween retailers see perhaps the most extreme seasonality out there, with upwards of 85% of their annual revenue taking place in a mere five or so weeks. Big e-commerce Halloween sites will see their staff swell from 30 to 300 and back down to 30 in an eight-week stretch.

So, forget the numbers; what’s hot this year? Pirates are huge, Star Wars seems to be a perennial favorite, Spider Man costumes are selling like hotcakes, but this years new hot costume are the Transformers. Word to the wise though: the manufacturer underestimated demand, and most Halloween stores are already sold out or on their last batches, so go grab one while you still can!

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When Google came along in the late 90s, it was embraced by many for its obvious design, ease of use and pleasant, white background. Its beauty was in its clarity and simplicity. Whereas Yahoo had always been part search engine, part portal, Google made the wise assumption that people just wanted one place to search and only search, and so they came to their design of a stark, white page with only their logo and a search box.

Sure, they added an “I’m feeling lucky” button, but other than being reverse engineered for jokes, nobody ever really used this.

Just about a decade later, a customized version of Google was created with two big differences:

1) The screen was now black, instead of white,

2) The logo read Blackle, rather than Google.

Many are already familiar with Blackle which was meant to be a “green” alternative to Google insofar that a computer monitor susposedly uses less electricity producing the color black than it does the color white. Since so many people use Google and since Blackle produces nearly identical results as does Google with a similar user experience (with notable exceptions), many environmentally minded individuals have adopted Blackle as their primary search engine.

Despite the fact that Blackle’s evidence is suspect at best, I’ve casually ignored Blackle because, at the end of the day, at least they were trying to do something interesting, even if the bottom line was always about making money rather than saving the earth. Sure, they reinvented the wheel and completely ripped off Google, but at least they raised some semblance of awareness about energy conservation, which is definitely a good thing. Therefore, I’ve never railed against Blackle as a scam or as an unnecessary use of cyberspace real estate. To be honest, my biggest gripe with Blackle is their tragically uninspired name… I mean, Blackle? Really? That’s the best you could do?

There is, however, an even newer custom version of Google to which I cannot bear such nonchalant indifference. Pinkle has recently been tearing up the Digg charts, having been “dugg” 2,446 times as of the typing of this link-laden sentence. Here’s why I hate pink: it demeans humanity. I mean, honestly, if Blackle is Google for environmentalists, then are we to believe that Pinkle is Google for what… girls? Isn’t it inherently sexist to believe that women need pink in order to finally get jazzed about search? I would say “yes” as the data seems to suggest that women are already well integrated within the search community.
In the last few years, pink (specifically the carnation variety) has been used to try and con women into getting them to do or buy things that they otherwise wouldn’t. Take sports, for example. Pink baseball caps, pink jerseys and even pink socks have been used to try and drag women into buying merchandise for something that they, as a demographic, often completely ignore. This is just as bad as if someone were to invent a show all about dancing but then made sure to include Hall of Fame athletes like Emmit Smith and Jerry Rice just to trick men into watching it. Oh, wait…

Anyway, long story short, Pinkle is a terrible idea and is likely, somehow setting the women’s movement back at least twenty by its mere existence. No, I don’t have any data to back this up, but neither does Blackle in its claim to be saving the planet. Worst of all, I fear that we are opening a door for more rip-off sites with terrible names to be churned out. I mean, seriously, what’s next? Greenle? Yellowle? Purplele? Actually, that last one sounds like it might be pronounced “Purp-lay-lay” which is actually pretty cool sounding. Hmmm…

Okay, I’ve got to go do something completely unrelated to creating purplele.com right now. Thanks for reading; good night!

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One of the most common things that people interested in internet advertising get consumed by is how much overall traffic or “clicks” we can get for their website without much or any relevancy to the quality of traffic. When people call our firm asking for specific numbers I usually can’t give them the answers they are looking for. You may ponder why, why an advertiser trying to promote someone’s website would not be able to tell a client such such vital information, but the reason is simple. It’s that the word “click” has become such a buzz word that people have lost site of the real goal of advertising, conversions. Internet marketing is unfortunately saturated with a lot of unethical companies that guarantee, or claim to guarantee, a certain number of “clicks” that will be driven to your site. Honestly though, it is crucial for people to detach from this sort of logic. From here, one must ask, what’s important?

What’s important for a person trying to embark down the road on internet advertising is targeted traffic. Clients will watch their hits, or clicks, or Alexa rank and form opinions about their performance by these metrics which may have little correlation with the true success of their business. In the end, it depends on the goals of your site. If your site is a content site, and your goal is to sell advertising, maybe this is a fair calculation, or one of a handful, that are relevant. However, if your business, like most, have specific goals, such as a sale, a lead, a form fill-out, or a phone call, these are the numbers that truly matter. The usefulness of a guaranteed 100 clicks, which are from broad, un-targeted audiences, pales in comparison to as few as 10 clicks, from a highly targeted one. A meager 10 clicks could produce even a single conversion that sometimes, even a high click volume will not yield. Clicks do not always translate to business, and though it may make you feel warm and fuzzy knowing that a lot of people visited your site, it is not necessarily indicative of a successful business. This lack of information is definitely not the consumers fault, internet advertising is a big new world that a lot of people are not well versed in. However, it is the job of ethical corporations, like ours, to try and present this information as readily as possible, so that people can form clearer, more rational ideas and expectations about their advertising ventures.

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