The holiday season is among us and if you haven’t started shopping for presents you probably soon will be. Marketers know this of course and they have their Holiday Marketing plans and budgets ready and rolling out slowly, but will that budget be enough?
In May 2009, Google changed its policy toward trademark usage in AdWords ads. Previously, Google had not allowed advertisers to use trademarks they didn’t own, either for targeting or in ad text, and Google was responsible for policing that policy. Under the new trademark policy, advertisers can use trademarks they don’t own under certain circumstances, such as if they are reselling a product or discussing the product on an informational site.
Search for branded terms naturally go up in the holiday season and Google’s self-policing new policy means that spammers and fraudulent sites who have larger budgets than the average affiliates will have more opportunity to buy branded terms, increasing the CPC and overtake brand terms from affiliates and even brand owners. Also if they are selling knock off products, they will have a higher ROI as the markup on the products ain’t so high.
Some think Google are being greedy in profit terms and that they are taking advantage of the season and the people’s need. What do you think?
A (very) quick animated scrapbook looking back at the Google story over the last 11 years. It starts from the beginning when the founders where at Stanford it goes on until they got the first check to Mountain View and around the world, featuring many different products, starting with BackRub (Search) and it goes on to mention Google Analytics, YouTube, up to Google Wave, StreetView and Chrome.
I have always said that the basis of good SEO is getting the fundamentals of building websites right. This includes good navigation, good quality structured content, good hosting and in general the way your site is developed.
Load speed is one very important factor for both search engines and humans alike. If you have a site that’s in flash and takes 90 seconds to load a lot of visitors will bounce off your site and if they do manage to stay there, it’s very unlikely that they will be repeat visitors.
Last week at PubCon, Google’s Matt Cutts revealed a new ranking factor that may debut in 2010: page load time.
Load time dependents on a lot of factors, but it mainly relies on these factors:
Website Hosting
Stop buying cheap hosting that’s $10 for 12 months. They are probably server farms with hundreds or 1000s of domains on the same server. Get a good quality server that your website(s) deserves. In the case of database-driven websites in particular, a slow server can have a significant effect on load time.
Website Development Even with the best hosting in the world and a server with Gigabytes of RAM, slow page load times are often the result of poor
development practices. Thanks to scripting languages like PHP, it’s
easy to learn how to build dynamic websites. This can be loading too many images and javascript files, redundant database data, bad sql queries and much more.
It is very important to test your website speed regularly to ensure your customers are getting a good service.
Usually on my blog I write on what I know and not much about what I’m learning. I achieved a lot of SEO goals I’ve had and now it’s time to take my Internet Marketing Skills to the next level. I have done a tonne of research before starting a campaign, been dong vigorous research for a few months, I wanted to make sure that I know the ins and outs of creating a successful PPC Campaign before I started
I learned a lot online, but running the campaign for 48 hours has thought more about Google AdWords than months of reading online.! You Learn More By Doing
Internet Marketing comes with a variety of ingredients including but not limited to, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing (SMM), E-mail Marketing and Pay Per Click Marketing.
PPC Marketing is when you write adverts that appear in search engines for your chosen keywords and when a potential customer clicks on that link, you pay a fee, starting from a few cents to a few dollars depending on the competition.
PPC Marketing is a perfect way, of getting Traffic Fast, especially with a new website
So far I have created an account with Google AdWords. Other search engines like Yahoo! and Bing have their own PPC engines however I haven’t started using those YET, I will though and you will get to learn about my experiences.
The registration process is relatively easy, you fill in your personal details, including VAT Number if you have one, payment options and payment options.
The next step is to create a campaign.
Things to know about Creating an AdWords Account
The creation of your AdWords is NOT Free, it cost $5, it’s not much, but it’s you have to pay it.
There are 2 payment options Pre-Pay Where you have to pay beforehand for the ads to be shown Post-Pay You will be billed every $50. It’s the option I use but be careful with using this, Google will NOT STOP showing your ads until you stop the campaigns or you run out of credit.
If you created a Campaign with AdGroups, Ads and Keywords, they will start showing immediately so make sure you Pause the campaign once you create it.
Do not start using Google AdWords before you know at least the basics.
I will go in more detail of creating an AdWords Campaign in the next article.
FREE BONUS #1:You can learn the basics of Google AdWords by watching videos in their own AdWords Learning Center
FREE BONUS #2: Want to know how you can get free money to start your AdWords Campaign? Simply Leave a comment below using your real e-mail address and I will send you an e-mail with the details.
This is a list of movies and scenes that I like and I find inspiring and moving in one way or another. Enjoy!
Boiler Room
Why I love it:
This is a kick ass, testosterone packed movie about a college dropout who is running an illegal casino from his own home. His entrepreneurial skills get picked up by a couple of stock brokers who recruit him and teach him to sell and become a millionaire. This movie contains a lot of great speeches about having the right attitude to make a sale.
Some Favorite Quotes:
“Pick up your skirt, grab your balls, and lets go make some money”
“They say money can’t buy happiness? Look at the fucking smile on my face. Ear to ear, baby”
Balboa (Rocky 6) Inspirational Speech
Why I Love It:
It’s Rocky, what’s not to love? It’s the ultimate underdog story, he’s the unlikely hero with a big heart who always wins against all odds. I especially like this particular scene when he talks about life to his kid.
Al Pacino’s Half Time Speech in Any Given Sunday
Why I Love It:
In this scene Al Pacino talks about how it’s the little things in life (the inches) that matters. No one can pump a crowd better than Al Pacino. Everyone things that this movie is just about American Football, it’s much more than that. The movie is about change, you can see the change in the characters throughout the movie, and what the game meant to each one of them: from the owner, to the coach, to the players, to the doctors, to the families.
Some Memorable Quotes:
“On any given Sunday you’re gonna win or you’re gonna lose. The point is – can you win or lose like a man?”
“No intensity, no victory.”
“That’s what a leader’s about: sacrifice. The times he’s gotta sacrifice because he’s gotta lead, by example. Not by fear and not by self-pity.”
Pursuit of Happyness – Protect Your Dreams
Why I love it:
I can’t say enough good things about this movie. It’s about a struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he’s poised to begin a life-changing professional endeavor. Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is a loving father and failing businessman. He is chosen for a competitive internship at Dean Witter, a stock brokerage. The internship, which offers Chris a very long shot at a better life, doesn’t pay any salary. Chris has to live without a salary for six months while risking just about everything for that long shot gamble.
His car is towed. His wife walks out on him, leaving him with a five year old son. He is arrested for unpaid traffic ticket… and the way he handles everything is nothing short of spectacular.
Some memorable quotes:
“Hey. Don’t ever let somebody tell you… You can’t do something. Not even me. All right?”
“You got a dream… You gotta protect it. People can’t do somethin’ themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want somethin’, go get it. Period.”
Glengarry Glen Ross
Why I like it:
Every character in the movie is one that I recognized from my office experiences…the mega-closer mouth piece (Baldwin), the complainers who always complained about the leads (Lemon and Arkin), the office manager who’d never actually sold anything before but had a little rub (Spacey), the hotshot salesman (Pacino)… it’s just so real…
Some Favorite Quotes:
Shelley Levene: The leads are weak.
Blake: “The leads are weak.” The fucking leads are weak? You’re weak
Jerry Maguire – Show Me The Money
Why I like it:
Romantic part of the movie aside, what I like about this is that Tom Cruise’s character, Jerry Maguire a sports agent has a moral epiphany and is fired for expressing it, he decides to put his new philosophy to the test as an independent with the only athlete who stays with him. It’s about loyalty, friendship, watching your ass, money and love.
Some Favorite Quotes:
“Show Me The Money”
“Help Me, Help You”
Layer Cake
Ok it’s about a drug dealer but it’s more than that. I like the main character’s principles, affluence and the way he carries himself. The way he out thinks his competitors and his enemies and the way he handles challenges and problems that come up. All important traits of a successful entrepreneur.
Some Favorite Quotes:
“Have a plan. Stick to it.”
“Life is so fucking good I can taste it in my spit.”
“It is vital that we work to a few golden rules. Always work in a small team. Keep a very low profile. Only deal with people who come recommended. And it’s like selling anything else: washing machines, hand made shoes, blowjobs. As long as you don’t take the piss people will always come back for more. And that is not to say we don’t have that special kind of magic that makes two kilos into three. But never be too greedy.”
“A Roman general once said, “If you want peace, plan for war.”"
Wall Street
(trailer – couldn’t find the right scene on youtube)
Why I Like It
The movies is about Bud Fox, a young stock broker who only wishes to excel in life. Wall Street is about those for whom material wealth takes precedence over morality, and those for whom it does not. Moreover, it is the story of one who is struggling to decide which of the two he is: greedy or ethical. The struggle between ethics and finance is something that we all encounter when we’re in business, which way will you go?
Some Favorite Quotes:
“Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others.”
“Lunch is for wimps….”
Bud Fox: “How much is enough?”
Gordon Gekko: “It’s not a question of enough, pal. It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another. ”
It doesn’t have any. Not for Google at least. It’s almost 2010 and some webmasters are still stuffing their Keywords in the Meta Keyword Tag with search keywords they want to rank for.
For those who don’t know the Meta Keyword tag was used to list the keywords most relevant to the Web page for better, more accurate search engine identification and it looks like this
When putting your keywords in the meta tag you’ll be doing 2 things.
1. Wasting Time
2. Exposing to your competitors what keywords you are trying to rank for.
Although Google completely ignores this meta tag and it has no effect whatsover on your website’s ranking , you can still use this to your advantage. Since some webmasters still use them vigorously, you can look for the keywords tag on their website and see some of the keywords they are trying to rank for. It is one of the most basic steps in Competitive Research Analysis.
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It doesn’t have any. Not for Google at least. It’s almost 2010 and some webmasters are still stuffing their Keywords in the Meta Keyword Tag with search keywords they want to rank for.