Evolving Relationship of SEO

I came across this article SEO Personalization An Evolving Relationship which has some good tidbits to live by when generating any type of online content. Any type of success will come with content that is consistently relevant to your target market.

Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja

Do you have Gmail and want to protect your online privacy?

Hello Everyone,

While i know this is counter productive to my career as an online marketing guru, i feel it is not right to willy nilly take people web history information. So if you want to protect yourself type in this url https://www.google.com/history/ and click on the button to Remove all Web History. This will clear your search history from being tracked and will not allow them to track your online movements.

Just think it's fair to let people know what Google is doing and what to do to protect your online privacy.

Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja

Augmented Television Experiences

There is this nagging idea that I have had since I heard about Google TV. For those that do not know, Google TV is a set top box that basically gives you the internet on your TV (along with the ability to further interact with additional content, surf the web and use applications). It sounds really cool, but seems to take away the group/family experience of watching TV. Seems like an awesome idea if there is just one person watching TV.

Now how do you allow a "Google TV" like experience with multiple users viewing a single TV. This is a recent Nielsen study showing how people use tablet and smartphone devices while watching television.


The growing adoption of smartphones and tablets allows most tech savvy individuals to readily consume and interact with additional content without interrupting a group television experience. There just needs to be that connection to additional content and experiences to enhance the overall experience. If there was a way to tether or link your devices to a set-top box or tv, it would allow for these augmented experiences for those that want them and leave the actual television unfettered for group viewing.

This to me seems like a more attractive experience than Google TV. It would not interrupt a group viewing experience, but would allow for enhance interactive experience for those that want it.

Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja

Only You Can Prevent Computer Viruses

*Warning This Post Is In No Way Related To Marketing/Advertising*


Now that we have that out of the way...
Saw an article on CNN labeled PC Viruses Are Mostly Your Fault, Says Microsoft and just had to post it.

While it may sound harsh or like Microsoft is trying to not take responsibility, in most cases people get viruses from doing things they shouldn't be doing (Bad websites, Illegal downloads, etc). 





Key thing to remember: Don't do bad things on your computer or open emails from the dethroned king of Nigeria and your computer should be quite safe.

Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja

Has anyone seen the new ad from Google, highlighting its Google+ product. If not take a look below and let me know your thoughts.



I think they are trying too hard to be clever. Just my opinion.

Thoughts?

Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja

Eye Tracking Study Reinforces Importance of Local Search Optimization

While the results of the study may be a bit biased (study was conducted by SEOMOZ) but it does reinforce the importance of optimizing your company website to show up in Local SERP (search engine results page). 


In most regards you would imagine that the majority of people would spend the most time interacting with the top three results. Surprisingly, most of the actual time spent looking at this page is spent not on the top three results, but at the local SERP results on the page.

Based on the results of the study, The local SERP stands out significantly with the additional map, phone and review information. This alone can easily account for it drawing more attention than standard listings in a SERP page. 

What does this mean? I have been saying it since the existence of my blog, but you need to optimize your websites for local search. Not only does it increase your chances of having enhanced listing for localized results, but it gives more relevant information about your business and optimizes it for mobile search. Making it more likely for someone to find you and enhance their lives with your product or service.

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Yahoo's Interesting Tablet Ad Concept

All i can say is wow! From the demo video it looks pretty nifty, but i would love to check it out myself before passing final judgement. Take a look at the demo for yourself!

Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja

Google's Version of Web MD

For all you nerdy webmasters out there, the new Google webmaster tools have a pretty nifty"Site Health" alert that pops up on your welcome dashboard to let you know if something is seriously wrong with your webpage.

My dorkdum has been validated, be jealous.

Best Regards,
The Marketing Ninja

Driving ROI From Social Media

This article from adage has a video that reminds me of a conversation i had with a senior manager last week.

Hope you enjoy it as much as i did.

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

The Beginning Of A New YouTube

http://mashable.com/2011/08/13/interactive-marketing-video/

Looks like YouTube is taking another step in the interactive direction. While there has been "choose your own adventure" type experiences (this one being my favorite!)

I can't really call fast forwarding/rewinding and replaying being a uber awesome interactive experience, but it is interactive. Creating an experience much like an interactive game, where you can make "choose your own adventure" like sequences happen without pausing the content being viewed would be the next best thing. Could YouTube technically become a new type of gaming platform? It is already considered a juggernaut in the online entertainment industry for its easy access to free and entertaining content.

Thoughts anyone?

Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja

Peek Into Google Mobile Strategy

googles-us-mobile-head-talks-local-intent-mcommerce-geo-targeting-and-more

In case you have not been keeping abreast of Google's growing mobile ecosystem including Google Wallet and Near Field Communication this is a good short article that goes over whats already available. Would personally like to see wider adoption of NFC and the like technology.

Best Regards,
- The Marketing Ninja

Ladies Not Feeling The QR Code Love?

Based on a report from comscore, it looks like most qr-code-scanners-searchers-are-affluent-18-34-males in the US. This new demographic information might be useful when dictating when and where QR codes are appropriate (video games, sports cars, home improvement).

I find it silly that the writer questions wither or not QR codes will gain full traction in the US. QR codes will never be a serious form of media alone but should always be used to supplement OOH and Print in the most common cases. The ability to instantly traverse individuals from one form of media to another is extremely valuable and should be integrated where it makes sense (To give additional valuable content that you would be unable to experience from the media being traversed). Match this with the ability to track usage with tagging analytics and you have an awesome way to track engagement and other revenue generating activities.

Regardless, QR codes should never be discounted and now that we are starting to get usage demographic information they can be utilized more effectively.  Now if only NFC will gain some traction (hint to smartphone manufacturers!)


Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja

ISP's Boldly Siphon Paid Search Advertising Dollars From Bing/Yahoo.

ISPs-Are-Hijacking-Bing-Yahoo-Searches

Bold, Smart, Brash, Call it what you may but Kudo's to these ISP's (Internet Service Providers...like Comcast) for finding a clever way to make money. Until Bing/Yahoo wises up its really their fault for not catching such a blatant and costly exploitation.

I am really interested in how much paid search revenue this is taking away from the affected search engines.

Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja

Interesting Look at Search In South Korea

This is a cool article that goes over the major search engines in South Korea and no...its not Google!

The overall design is more reminicent of a traditional web portal (Think Yahoo and AOL). Fascinating to see what South Koreans determine as useful with regards to search. It seems like they want more quality information about current trends and events than a clean interface. Naver itself has a pretty cool real time updating social network stream, now if only i could read Korean! Just goes to show you that one size certainly does not fit all, especially with regards to International SEO.

Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja

Photovine: Weaving A Story In Pictures?

This recent addition from Google is a mobile photo sharing network that allows individuals to snap a picture and create a theme for it. Once this is posted others are able join in and add photos of their own along that same theme, weaving together a story in pictures.

Pretty nifty concept but will it stick? I think its time for me to buy a new phone so i can try out some of these nifty new mobile experiences. My Palm Pre + just isn't kicking it any longer.

Anyways take a look at this video that starts with a heart melting intro. Enjoy!

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Yahoo and UM On What Car Buyers Want

http://www.yadvertisingblog.com/blog/2011/07/11/how-online-car-buyers-decide/

Nifty article on what influences car buying decisions in both Digital and Dealer experiences. 

Best Regards,

The Marketing Ninja

Key To Future Of Social Networks Lies In Mobile

Google+1 launched this week, and it seems most people think its sort of cool but just another version of Facebook. I feel that most are missing the "big picture" just by looking at the desktop interface and not all of the features included. Technology introduces the means in which we consume and interact with the world and the people in it. Figuring out "Mobile" is the big thing and Google seems to have seen the light.

Huddle, a feature that is restricted only to Android users (hopefully just for now), allows people to communicate with their circles, setup events, and give updates to those events via mobile group chat in real time. Such a cool feature that at the very least this (ME) individual could use on his Friday/Saturday night adventures.

This ability to take all of those useful functionality of a social network with you, and use them real-time to augment daily experiences is the penultimate "next-big-thing" that is actually already here. Keep in mind that the product is still in "beta", its user-base is slowly but steadily trickling in, and too me the most important feature is limited to Android smart phones only. Still....bravo Google. Something might finally just start to stick :)

Best Regards,
The Marketing Ninja

A New Type of Search Ad, Just Google Doing What They Do Best!

http://searchengineland.com/google-offer-ads-not-google-offers-in-the-wild-81418

Shouldn't doubt Google from making their search ad's more robust. That's like expecting Microsoft to loose its edge in office productivity software.

As you can see it looks like the equivalent of an online coupon with a faux outline to clip out the offer. It does its job in standings out and giving the advertiser more room to add enticing copy. I just wonder how much more it costs to add this feature to a search campaign?

Good job Google! Just when i think i had seen everything search advertising had to offer they keep on giving more. Keep innovating and keep it up!

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Google Tweaks Show That The Smallest Changes Make a Big Difference

Google announced a slew of updates and enhancements to its Mobile and Desktop search platforms. The things that always surprise me the most are the simplest of changes (such as the Instant Pages feature) . This dandy feature pre-loads the first search results web page, enabling Kazaam like speed.

I am sure that Bing/Yahoo will follow suit as it should be fairly easy to implement and give users a more enjoyable search experience.

So much other stuff to talk about, yet so little time!

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Social Media Consultants Reality Check "Facebook Sharing/Likes Does Not Affect Search Rankings!"

Just to serve as a reality check, Google's Matt Cutts reinforced that Facebook activities do not directly positively/negatively affect search engine rankings. Wouldn't it make more sense that high quality content, that would happen to be organically highly ranked, would have a high share/like rate on Facebook because its good content.

Can't forget that age old, high school lesson that just because two things can be correlated, does not mean that they directly cause each other....unless you are making the argument that people like to share useful things online.

http://searchengineland.com/its-not-he-said-she-said-over-google-rankings-facebook-shares-80601?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=feed-main

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja