TheAlphaMarketer: May 2006 Archives

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May31	Six Apart offering new blogging platform Gary Bourgeault May 31, 2006 Know More: Digital Trends, Digital content, Social-Networking, Understanding Niche Marketing, Web 2.0 2.0, Social-Networking Six Apart is opening up its new blogging platform named Vox to users starting June 1. Publish.com reports: Vox, currently known by its code name "Comet," is a free, hosted blogging service. It is Six Apart's fourth blogging platform, following Moveable Type, LiveJournal and TypePad, which combined have over 30 million users worldwide, according to the company. With Vox, Six Apart is trying to capitalize on several emerging online trends, including privacy concerns and the excitement over social networking sites. Continue Reading Posted at 2:15 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May31	Understanding the New Internet Gary Bourgeault May 31, 2006 When I was contemplating recently on what the new media and online changes and interruptions have meant, it reminded me of something I read a long time ago concerning amateur sports. What the writer said was that anybody that learned... Continue Reading Posted at 1:45 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May30	Statistics on the most profitable keywords Gary Bourgeault May 30, 2006 To help you understand that not all keywords are created equal, here are a couple of lists that show you the difference. The first list will show you the most expensive keywords and how they produce for the users, and... Continue Reading Posted at 8:15 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	More PDF download tips Gary Bourgeault May 30, 2006 When you're considering creating a PDF file for the purpose of having it printed out, make sure you let whoever is doing it that it is a PDF file, meaning, leave off all the fancy graphic stuff, which will make... Continue Reading Posted at 1:16 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Is your PDF Download Optimized? Gary Bourgeault May 30, 2006 One of the major things to know about PDFs is that consumers prefer them almost 400% more than filling out a form that requests a printed copy to me mailed to them, according to Marketing Sherpa. What seems to work... Continue Reading Posted at 12:58 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May29	Col Needham and IMDB: A Great Success Story Gary Bourgeault May 29, 2006 In a classic example of taking something you love and making it into a business, Col Needham has done just that. He has turned his love of film quietly into an online media powerhouse without that being his goal. The... Continue Reading Posted at 2:32 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May28	Empowerment offers huge possibilities Gary Bourgeault May 28, 2006 An area that needs to be improved upon greatly in the online world is the empowerment of online users. While there have been obvious strides with YouTube and MySpace and a lot of others, the area of simplicity still must... Continue Reading Posted at 8:09 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	A sneaky little truth about banner ads Gary Bourgeault May 28, 2006 The use of banners has been declared dead by almost everyone that writes about online marketing. The problem is, and the question that must be asked is then "Why are there still lots of places that have them?" In the... Continue Reading Posted at 2:35 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May27	Tell them don't, and they'll do it! Gary Bourgeault May 27, 2006 The biggest thing all of us online marketers desire is for our visitors to do the thing that we've created a page for. We are always searching for ways to increase the response rate. Have you ever seen a child... Continue Reading Posted at 6:53 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Press Releases can give you a great Boost! Gary Bourgeault May 27, 2006 No matter how small or big your online business is, press releases will always be a great way to get noticed. Something most business owners think of with press releases is that they are initiated at the start of a... Continue Reading Posted at 3:22 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May26	Judge rules that bloggers and journalists the same Gary Bourgeault May 26, 2006 In a California state appeal court Justice Conrad Rushing ruled that online reporters and bloggers are considered no different and are entitled to the same protections as other journalists. The ruling came in response to the case initiated by Apple... Continue Reading Posted at 9:07 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	YouTube is the leader in the surging Video Traffic wars Gary Bourgeault May 26, 2006 According to Hitwise, online traffic to the top ten video sites increased over 164 percent during the last three months (from February 25 to May 20). YouTube has driven 43 percent of that traffic alone. Of the half a million... Continue Reading Posted at 6:31 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google puts browser toolbar on new Dell Computers Gary Bourgeault May 26, 2006 Dell (DELL) Computer has partnered with Google (GOOG) to put Googles browser toolbar and other Google software applications on its newly shipped computers. Google will also be powering Dell's start page. I'm sure this will cost Google a lot, but... Continue Reading Posted at 2:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May25	Commission Junction announcement shakes up Blogoshere Gary Bourgeault May 25, 2006 The online marketing world has been hopping today as Commission Junction announced that it is going to change its link structure from HTML to Java Script. Scott Jangro says: "There’s a rule-of-thumb I like to go by: ‘If you take... Continue Reading Posted at 5:48 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	MSN Spaces largest blogging service in the World Gary Bourgeault May 25, 2006 comScore Networks Inc., an independent consultant released data showing that MSN Spaces is now the most used blogging service in the world with over 100 million unique visitors. The report reveals that for April 2006 the number of unique... Continue Reading Posted at 2:29 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May24	Two tips that will help you get traffic fast Gary Bourgeault May 24, 2006 A lot of people, for vanity reasons, like to get a brand new domain name that they have created. It makes them feel real good when they think of what they've done. There is only one problem with this in... Continue Reading Posted at 10:50 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Technorati and AP partner for access to 440 AP newspapers Gary Bourgeault May 24, 2006 According to a report by blogcritics.org, Technorati and AP finalized a deal today that will provide bloggers access to over 440 AP newspapers. The official Technorati blog said this: "Several months ago we and The Associated Press began to talk... Continue Reading Posted at 4:28 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Case study of a niche social networking company Gary Bourgeault May 24, 2006 We recently talked about MySpace being the new mass-media and how this could be a real weakness in their business model; if they even have any. There is an interesting case study that sheds some real light on what we... Continue Reading Posted at 3:59 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Online Retail sales continues to explode Gary Bourgeault May 24, 2006 Online sales are predicted to grow 20 percent this year, which will bring it to over $211 billion, according to an annual study conducted by Forrester Research. Not including travel, 2006 online sales are believed to increase 22 percent to... Continue Reading Posted at 1:03 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May23	Is MySpace the new Mass Media? Gary Bourgeault May 23, 2006 A number of online marketers are starting to view MySpace as the new mass media - far too large to attract any specific demographic group very well. This is resulting in an onslaught of competitors beginning their own offerings in... Continue Reading Posted at 11:08 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google users promised Artificial Intelligence Gary Bourgeault May 23, 2006 Google (GOOG) chief executive Eric Schmidt and co-founder Larry Page gave an insight into perhaps the most ambitious project the Californian business is undertaking - artificial intelligence (AI). Page added that AI could become a reality within the next few... Continue Reading Posted at 6:19 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May22	Marketers say Holding Companies terrible at Integrated Marketing Gary Bourgeault May 22, 2006 Millward Brown conducted the 4th Annual PRWeek/MS&L Marketing Management Survey that measures how holding companies do integrate the regular media buy of TV and radio along with new media buy that offers more creative and innovative soltions together with ROI.... Continue Reading Posted at 10:26 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Yahoo ahead of Google in Mail, News and Finance portals Gary Bourgeault May 22, 2006 Google (GOOG) is always heard about in the news, far above its competitors because of its continuous growth and importance in search. But when it comes to areas like mail, news and finance portals, Yahoo (YHOO) is the hands down... Continue Reading Posted at 8:06 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google gains market share for 9th straight month Gary Bourgeault May 22, 2006 comScore Networks unveiled its monthly qSearch analysis today of activity across various search engines. Google (GOOG) gained in its search market share for its ninth straight month as it grew to 43.1 percent of all the U.S. searches on the... Continue Reading Posted at 4:10 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May21	Honda's creative Search campaign Gary Bourgeault May 21, 2006 If you haven't heard about RPA's successful campaign for the Honda Element, you're missing out on a great learning experience. The campaign overall incorporated television, a Web site and search to motivate visitors to enter into and interact with a... Continue Reading Posted at 7:31 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Consumers slowly adopting RSS Gary Bourgeault May 21, 2006 JupiterResearch in a report called "RSS Comes of Age: Budgeting, Deploying, and Measuring RSS," found that only around 30% of companies with more than $50 million in yearly revenue published content via RSS technology or Really Simple Syndication. Of those... Continue Reading Posted at 12:42 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May20	Duplication: One of the secrets of success Gary Bourgeault May 20, 2006 Years ago I remember going to a conference and the speaker talking about there only being a couple of ways to be extremely successful. One of them was the principle of duplication. Duplication is simply finding out the way something... Continue Reading Posted at 8:27 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	What is growing in Online Marketing Gary Bourgeault May 20, 2006 One way you can learn about where the business focus is going is through examining the outsourcing industry. In the area of the tech industry, it is growing out from call center, telemarketing and transaction processing to the creative outsourcing... Continue Reading Posted at 4:45 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May19	Great News for Email Marketers Gary Bourgeault May 19, 2006 In a pleasant surprise, the first quarter of 2006 saw email open and click rates grew tremendously. They increased by 40 percent for open rates and 60 percent for click through rates over Q4 2005, when they had decreased by... Continue Reading Posted at 10:27 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Tacoda Screening Content, Ensure 'Clean' Environment for Advertisers Gary Bourgeault May 19, 2006 Tacoda will weekly screen content that appears adjacent to ads served over its behaviorally targeted online advertising network, the company announced. It has gotten together with Internet management solutions provider ContentWatch, which will scan the 3,500 sites in the Tacoda Audience... Continue Reading Posted at 10:08 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	U.S. Justice Department Rejects Google's IE 7 Nonsense Gary Bourgeault May 19, 2006 The U.S. Justice Department has came to the decision, after trying out the search features on Microsoft (MSFT) Internet Explorer 7, that Google's (GOOG) concerning the default settings for the search box do not violate Microsoft's antitrust agreement with the... Continue Reading Posted at 9:49 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	RSS Ad Click-throughs Going Down Some Gary Bourgeault May 19, 2006 According to a report by Pheedo (Pheed Read Spring 2006), some ads placed in RSS feeds are getting higher click-through rates than regualar online image ads. The average CTR of standalone RSS ads is 2.76 percent, while inline RSS ads... Continue Reading Posted at 7:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Ask.com is focusing on the right things Gary Bourgeault May 19, 2006 One of the reasons and strengths that ask.com has over its rivals Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO) is that it isn't soley dependent upon search to get all its revenue. This gives them the ability and affordability to take some... Continue Reading Posted at 3:55 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May18	Learning to get them to go deep and wide Gary Bourgeault May 18, 2006 We always hear about the fact that content is king - and it is true. But everybody has content. What is it about your content that will separate you in the eyes of those viewing your site? One of... Continue Reading Posted at 9:40 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Yahoo CFO says they should be able to outperform the overall Internet Industry Gary Bourgeault May 18, 2006 Yahoo Inc. Chief Financial Officer Sue Decker commented on Wednesday that the company should be able to grow faster than the overall Internet industry for the next few years, although it will come it at the lower end of the... Continue Reading Posted at 8:53 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google learns a hard lesson with its Video service Gary Bourgeault May 18, 2006 Thealphamarketer.com always talks about simplifying your visitors experience and eliminating as many steps as possible between what the customer needs to do to accomplish their task. Google (GOOG) learned this the hard way as their video service forced users to... Continue Reading Posted at 2:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May17	Eliot Spitzer needs to be put on trial Gary Bourgeault May 17, 2006 The benevolent (gag) New York Attorney General and gubernatorial wannabe wants to put a chicken in every basket, ah, I mean affordable broadband in all New Yorkers homes. Businessweek writer Burt Helm reports: "If elected, Spitzer said he wants to... Continue Reading Posted at 11:13 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	A sure way to win new customers (and keep old ones) Gary Bourgeault May 17, 2006 Do you want to know how to be ridiculously successful in any business - including online marketing? It sounds so simple that it seems obvious, but delivering on it is anything but that. Here it is: figure out ways... Continue Reading Posted at 4:45 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May16	How a blog or Web site can complement one another Gary Bourgeault May 16, 2006 One of the secrets of online marketers that isn't published or talked about a lot (although I've revealed it before here) is the way they create one blog or Web site for the purpose of sending traffic to another... Continue Reading Posted at 6:54 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Does Innovation Matter Anymore? Gary Bourgeault May 16, 2006 All the tech companies seem to be in a copycat mode lately. You hear all over the Web, AOL's (TWX) home page design being copied by Yahoo. Then you have Skype announcing on Monday that you will now be able... Continue Reading Posted at 4:08 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May15	Can Google compete with its current business culture? Gary Bourgeault May 15, 2006 In a hosted "informal" gathering for the press and analysts last week, some came away from it wondering if Google (GOOG) will have the resolve to compete head-on with Microsoft (MSFT). While saying that she appreciated the friendliness shown by... Continue Reading Posted at 9:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	U.K. Web-based companies fail at customer service Gary Bourgeault May 15, 2006 Internet service company Transveral did its annual customer service analysis of 100 of the top website and discovered that almost 70% could answer less than 40% of the 10 questions most asked by customers. Only a dismal 16 percent could... Continue Reading Posted at 5:29 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May13	Could Web 2.0 be legislated out of existence? Gary Bourgeault May 13, 2006 Ah, election year politics. In a measure appropriately called (DOPA) Deleting Online Predators Act, the House of Representatives has proposed a bill on May 9 that block complete access to social networks and other interactive sites in the majority of... Continue Reading Posted at 11:36 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Seth Godin interview on Marketing Gary Bourgeault May 13, 2006 Ina Steiner from auctionbytes.tv does a short interview with Seth Godin (13 minutes) that was very good and had some great internet marketing tips that you can learn from. Seth talks about profiting from online auctions and the way you... Continue Reading Posted at 7:42 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Social-Networking Sites still showing healthy growth Gary Bourgeault May 13, 2006 Almost half of all serious Internet users visited a social-networking Web site last month reported Nielsen//MetRatings. They added that all the big players in this field enjoyed huge growth in the last year. The huge big numbers that are drawn... Continue Reading Posted at 3:18 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	New survey reveals media habits of US executives Gary Bourgeault May 13, 2006 Ipsos Media in a recent poll reported that the top U.S. executives believe that the internet if the most important aspect of a business title's overall offering. The survey revealed that almost 70 percent of executives that were questioned believed... Continue Reading Posted at 2:53 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May12	The exploding Hispanic market in the U.S Gary Bourgeault May 12, 2006 The recent merging of Yahoo and GE's Telemundo Network made me think again of the burgeoning Hispanic market in the U.S. I've mentioned before on this blog, but it's worth repeating: the Hispanic market in the U.S. is estimated within... Continue Reading Posted at 7:56 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Lucid Marketing study gives insight into WOM behaviors Gary Bourgeault May 12, 2006 Lucid Marketing conducted a recent study called "U.S. Adults: Word of Mouth Communications." The study showed a number of valuable statistics to help you target specific demographics. Here are some of the behaviors they uncovered: Full time employees make as... Continue Reading Posted at 7:08 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google Trends looks great for online marketers Gary Bourgeault May 12, 2006 Larry Page, left, and Sergey Brin at Google's Press Day a Google (GOOG) in response to attacks by Microsoft (MSFT) on their core business of search, is launching some new applications that attempt to strengthen that part of the business... Continue Reading Posted at 5:43 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Steve Ballmer hits back at Google Gary Bourgeault May 12, 2006 We talked about the ridiculous complaint by Google (GOOG) recently concerning their attempt to paint the new Microsoft IE 7 browser as an attempt at a monopoly. As I said in another post recently: "The bizarre complaint is odd when... Continue Reading Posted at 1:39 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May11	Internet usage stats worldwide Gary Bourgeault May 11, 2006 With the growing usage of the Internet outside of the U.S. and western countries, it is increasingly important to know where this growth is coming from for many online marketers. Top 15 Online Populations by Country, Among Visitors Age 15+*... Continue Reading Posted at 6:21 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Search is gradually changing toward relevancy Gary Bourgeault May 11, 2006 In a recent study desiged to uncover where viewers first looked on a search results page, where they first scanned a listing, and where they eventually clicked, there were some quite telling results. With Yahoo 84 percent of the first... Continue Reading Posted at 2:12 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Smaller online communities and subscription opportunities Gary Bourgeault May 11, 2006 All of you reading this have probably been to MySpace and YouTube, two huge online community centers. They give a good snapshot into great opportunities in the years ahead for niche marketers. How many customers and members of a community... Continue Reading Posted at 1:37 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May10	Search engine companies should stay with what they know Gary Bourgeault May 10, 2006 The search engine industry may be stepping way beyond its measure as it looks like they're going beyond their purpose and expertise. They seem to be going with just any wind of a supposed trend. As the word has gotten... Continue Reading Posted at 11:18 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	They say blogging doesn't have power? Gary Bourgeault May 10, 2006 Warner Kremer Paino Advertising, which filed a strange lawsuit last month against a blogger for revealing and criticizing their online advertising campaign, has went capitulated. After Lance Dutson, the recipient of the suit, began his criticism of the campaign, which... Continue Reading Posted at 2:35 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 9	The real secret to online success is invisible Gary Bourgeault May 9, 2006 There is a secret out there that a lot of people know concerning diets: for the most part they all work! It is never the diet that is the problem, it is always the one attempting it. What does this... Continue Reading Posted at 10:38 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Online, interactive customer service will trend for years Gary Bourgeault May 9, 2006 With its dropping membership along with an increase in quality online help, AOL has announced that it is cutting 1,300 customer-service jobs, with 900 of them being immediately. Their Jacksonville, Fla. call center is being closed entirely. AOL's original subscription... Continue Reading Posted at 9:48 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Most Men's print magazines are taking a beating! Gary Bourgeault May 9, 2006 In the continuing upheavel across all media, we are now hearing about the huge exodus of advertisers from men's magazines and moving to where most the young men go: online to interactive media. A large number of magazines are struggling... Continue Reading Posted at 5:53 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	An easy to implement, front-end email strategy Gary Bourgeault May 9, 2006 While on the subject of email, here is a simply thing you can do when someone opts-in to your ezine. This makes sense only if you have double opt-in. I hope you do, it can save you a lot... Continue Reading Posted at 3:54 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 8	Don't follow the herd: A quick look at e-mail Gary Bourgeault May 8, 2006 Search is probably given far more attention than any other vehicle for monetizing your online marketing success. While it does play a big part, it is far from being the only big thing. As stories about e-mail have been circulating... Continue Reading Posted at 4:48 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 7	Sponsored Clicks becoming more Important Gary Bourgeault May 7, 2006 Peter Daboll, President and CEO of comScore Media Metrix, recently said "With the number of sponsored clicks representing a significant driver of search engine revenue... approximately 11.4 percent of Yahoo! and 11.8 percent of Google's searches resulted in a click... Continue Reading Posted at 3:29 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	eBay is Integrating Skype, Paypal; to start their own Online Advertising Service Gary Bourgeault May 7, 2006 Concerning announcements by eBay about the integration of eBay, Skype and Paypal AuctionBytes.com reported: "Across all of our businesses, we see greater opportunities for future growth than ever before," said Meg Whitman, President and CEO, eBay Inc. "Each of our... Continue Reading Posted at 12:34 AM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 6	Two competing consumer demands Gary Bourgeault May 6, 2006 One of the great oddities concerning innovation is its double-edged sword. On one hand there is a demand from consumers for more features, functions and power, but even more in demand is that it must be absolutely simple to use.... Continue Reading Posted at 5:31 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google is being sued over child porn payments Gary Bourgeault May 6, 2006 This is a problem online companies better take more seriously. All over the Web people are blogging about the MySpace allowance of pornography and sites not suitable for young viewers. Google (GOOG) has been talked about before concerning its negligence in... Continue Reading Posted at 4:23 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 5	Understanding what content really is Gary Bourgeault May 5, 2006 We recently talked about a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey. It revealed that approximately 60 million Americans used the Web to help them in making important decisions in their lives during the last two years. Another result of... Continue Reading Posted at 3:04 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Mobile marketing convergence is almost here Gary Bourgeault May 5, 2006 There are three types of data that need to be included in an effective targeting platform for mobiles. First you have to have the general data. That which most of us think of when we use the term such as... Continue Reading Posted at 2:41 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	The Mobile advertising challenge Gary Bourgeault May 5, 2006 Mobile advertising has some of the same problems that online advertising has: consumers want good, quality, relevant content but don't want to be bothered by spam or things irrelevant to their lives. While the mobile carriers need higher quality content... Continue Reading Posted at 2:22 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 4	The Internet is fully geekified Gary Bourgeault May 4, 2006 I have been debating whether I wanted to share this with you or not. It is one of those things that will be changing everything on the Internet. No, not will be, it already is and has. What is this... Continue Reading Posted at 11:04 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Why YouTube and MySpace hit the Internet holy grail Gary Bourgeault May 4, 2006 You now know the way. We have talked about here and others have for years about technology being for the consumer, not for the business. Now when you consider the simplicity of YouTube and MySpace, it's not hard to figure... Continue Reading Posted at 11:00 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	A three-step simple online marketing formula Gary Bourgeault May 4, 2006 One of those little secrets that people don't like going around too much is the power of the Internet to reach niche markets. Now this doesn't sound too much like a secret as it seems everybody talks about it. The... Continue Reading Posted at 8:33 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	One Google Adwords mistake to avoid Gary Bourgeault May 4, 2006 One Google (GOOG) Adwords mistake that I still find quite a large number of companies doing is to take the easy route of pointing their destination URL to their homepage rather than taking a little time to deterimine the best... Continue Reading Posted at 12:43 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 3	One of the customer traits all online marketers need to know Gary Bourgeault May 3, 2006 As broadband usage continues and consumers demand more flexibility and a variety of content, a major trend has been revealed and understood by many of the major players. Now you can take advantage of this knowledge. What is this ongoing... Continue Reading

May31	Six Apart offering new blogging platform Gary Bourgeault May 31, 2006 Know More: Digital Trends, Digital content, Social-Networking, Understanding Niche Marketing, Web 2.0 2.0, Social-Networking Six Apart is opening up its new blogging platform named Vox to users starting June 1. Publish.com reports: Vox, currently known by its code name "Comet," is a free, hosted blogging service. It is Six Apart's fourth blogging platform, following Moveable Type, LiveJournal and TypePad, which combined have over 30 million users worldwide, according to the company. With Vox, Six Apart is trying to capitalize on several emerging online trends, including privacy concerns and the excitement over social networking sites. Continue Reading Posted at 2:15 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May31	Understanding the New Internet Gary Bourgeault May 31, 2006 When I was contemplating recently on what the new media and online changes and interruptions have meant, it reminded me of something I read a long time ago concerning amateur sports. What the writer said was that anybody that learned... Continue Reading Posted at 1:45 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May30	Statistics on the most profitable keywords Gary Bourgeault May 30, 2006 To help you understand that not all keywords are created equal, here are a couple of lists that show you the difference. The first list will show you the most expensive keywords and how they produce for the users, and... Continue Reading Posted at 8:15 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	More PDF download tips Gary Bourgeault May 30, 2006 When you're considering creating a PDF file for the purpose of having it printed out, make sure you let whoever is doing it that it is a PDF file, meaning, leave off all the fancy graphic stuff, which will make... Continue Reading Posted at 1:16 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Is your PDF Download Optimized? Gary Bourgeault May 30, 2006 One of the major things to know about PDFs is that consumers prefer them almost 400% more than filling out a form that requests a printed copy to me mailed to them, according to Marketing Sherpa. What seems to work... Continue Reading Posted at 12:58 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May29	Col Needham and IMDB: A Great Success Story Gary Bourgeault May 29, 2006 In a classic example of taking something you love and making it into a business, Col Needham has done just that. He has turned his love of film quietly into an online media powerhouse without that being his goal. The... Continue Reading Posted at 2:32 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May28	Empowerment offers huge possibilities Gary Bourgeault May 28, 2006 An area that needs to be improved upon greatly in the online world is the empowerment of online users. While there have been obvious strides with YouTube and MySpace and a lot of others, the area of simplicity still must... Continue Reading Posted at 8:09 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	A sneaky little truth about banner ads Gary Bourgeault May 28, 2006 The use of banners has been declared dead by almost everyone that writes about online marketing. The problem is, and the question that must be asked is then "Why are there still lots of places that have them?" In the... Continue Reading Posted at 2:35 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May27	Tell them don't, and they'll do it! Gary Bourgeault May 27, 2006 The biggest thing all of us online marketers desire is for our visitors to do the thing that we've created a page for. We are always searching for ways to increase the response rate. Have you ever seen a child... Continue Reading Posted at 6:53 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Press Releases can give you a great Boost! Gary Bourgeault May 27, 2006 No matter how small or big your online business is, press releases will always be a great way to get noticed. Something most business owners think of with press releases is that they are initiated at the start of a... Continue Reading Posted at 3:22 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May26	Judge rules that bloggers and journalists the same Gary Bourgeault May 26, 2006 In a California state appeal court Justice Conrad Rushing ruled that online reporters and bloggers are considered no different and are entitled to the same protections as other journalists. The ruling came in response to the case initiated by Apple... Continue Reading Posted at 9:07 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	YouTube is the leader in the surging Video Traffic wars Gary Bourgeault May 26, 2006 According to Hitwise, online traffic to the top ten video sites increased over 164 percent during the last three months (from February 25 to May 20). YouTube has driven 43 percent of that traffic alone. Of the half a million... Continue Reading Posted at 6:31 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google puts browser toolbar on new Dell Computers Gary Bourgeault May 26, 2006 Dell (DELL) Computer has partnered with Google (GOOG) to put Googles browser toolbar and other Google software applications on its newly shipped computers. Google will also be powering Dell's start page. I'm sure this will cost Google a lot, but... Continue Reading Posted at 2:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May25	Commission Junction announcement shakes up Blogoshere Gary Bourgeault May 25, 2006 The online marketing world has been hopping today as Commission Junction announced that it is going to change its link structure from HTML to Java Script. Scott Jangro says: "There’s a rule-of-thumb I like to go by: ‘If you take... Continue Reading Posted at 5:48 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	MSN Spaces largest blogging service in the World Gary Bourgeault May 25, 2006 comScore Networks Inc., an independent consultant released data showing that MSN Spaces is now the most used blogging service in the world with over 100 million unique visitors. The report reveals that for April 2006 the number of unique... Continue Reading Posted at 2:29 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May24	Two tips that will help you get traffic fast Gary Bourgeault May 24, 2006 A lot of people, for vanity reasons, like to get a brand new domain name that they have created. It makes them feel real good when they think of what they've done. There is only one problem with this in... Continue Reading Posted at 10:50 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Technorati and AP partner for access to 440 AP newspapers Gary Bourgeault May 24, 2006 According to a report by blogcritics.org, Technorati and AP finalized a deal today that will provide bloggers access to over 440 AP newspapers. The official Technorati blog said this: "Several months ago we and The Associated Press began to talk... Continue Reading Posted at 4:28 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Case study of a niche social networking company Gary Bourgeault May 24, 2006 We recently talked about MySpace being the new mass-media and how this could be a real weakness in their business model; if they even have any. There is an interesting case study that sheds some real light on what we... Continue Reading Posted at 3:59 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Online Retail sales continues to explode Gary Bourgeault May 24, 2006 Online sales are predicted to grow 20 percent this year, which will bring it to over $211 billion, according to an annual study conducted by Forrester Research. Not including travel, 2006 online sales are believed to increase 22 percent to... Continue Reading Posted at 1:03 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May23	Is MySpace the new Mass Media? Gary Bourgeault May 23, 2006 A number of online marketers are starting to view MySpace as the new mass media - far too large to attract any specific demographic group very well. This is resulting in an onslaught of competitors beginning their own offerings in... Continue Reading Posted at 11:08 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google users promised Artificial Intelligence Gary Bourgeault May 23, 2006 Google (GOOG) chief executive Eric Schmidt and co-founder Larry Page gave an insight into perhaps the most ambitious project the Californian business is undertaking - artificial intelligence (AI). Page added that AI could become a reality within the next few... Continue Reading Posted at 6:19 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May22	Marketers say Holding Companies terrible at Integrated Marketing Gary Bourgeault May 22, 2006 Millward Brown conducted the 4th Annual PRWeek/MS&L Marketing Management Survey that measures how holding companies do integrate the regular media buy of TV and radio along with new media buy that offers more creative and innovative soltions together with ROI.... Continue Reading Posted at 10:26 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Yahoo ahead of Google in Mail, News and Finance portals Gary Bourgeault May 22, 2006 Google (GOOG) is always heard about in the news, far above its competitors because of its continuous growth and importance in search. But when it comes to areas like mail, news and finance portals, Yahoo (YHOO) is the hands down... Continue Reading Posted at 8:06 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google gains market share for 9th straight month Gary Bourgeault May 22, 2006 comScore Networks unveiled its monthly qSearch analysis today of activity across various search engines. Google (GOOG) gained in its search market share for its ninth straight month as it grew to 43.1 percent of all the U.S. searches on the... Continue Reading Posted at 4:10 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May21	Honda's creative Search campaign Gary Bourgeault May 21, 2006 If you haven't heard about RPA's successful campaign for the Honda Element, you're missing out on a great learning experience. The campaign overall incorporated television, a Web site and search to motivate visitors to enter into and interact with a... Continue Reading Posted at 7:31 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Consumers slowly adopting RSS Gary Bourgeault May 21, 2006 JupiterResearch in a report called "RSS Comes of Age: Budgeting, Deploying, and Measuring RSS," found that only around 30% of companies with more than $50 million in yearly revenue published content via RSS technology or Really Simple Syndication. Of those... Continue Reading Posted at 12:42 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May20	Duplication: One of the secrets of success Gary Bourgeault May 20, 2006 Years ago I remember going to a conference and the speaker talking about there only being a couple of ways to be extremely successful. One of them was the principle of duplication. Duplication is simply finding out the way something... Continue Reading Posted at 8:27 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	What is growing in Online Marketing Gary Bourgeault May 20, 2006 One way you can learn about where the business focus is going is through examining the outsourcing industry. In the area of the tech industry, it is growing out from call center, telemarketing and transaction processing to the creative outsourcing... Continue Reading Posted at 4:45 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May19	Great News for Email Marketers Gary Bourgeault May 19, 2006 In a pleasant surprise, the first quarter of 2006 saw email open and click rates grew tremendously. They increased by 40 percent for open rates and 60 percent for click through rates over Q4 2005, when they had decreased by... Continue Reading Posted at 10:27 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Tacoda Screening Content, Ensure 'Clean' Environment for Advertisers Gary Bourgeault May 19, 2006 Tacoda will weekly screen content that appears adjacent to ads served over its behaviorally targeted online advertising network, the company announced. It has gotten together with Internet management solutions provider ContentWatch, which will scan the 3,500 sites in the Tacoda Audience... Continue Reading Posted at 10:08 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	U.S. Justice Department Rejects Google's IE 7 Nonsense Gary Bourgeault May 19, 2006 The U.S. Justice Department has came to the decision, after trying out the search features on Microsoft (MSFT) Internet Explorer 7, that Google's (GOOG) concerning the default settings for the search box do not violate Microsoft's antitrust agreement with the... Continue Reading Posted at 9:49 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	RSS Ad Click-throughs Going Down Some Gary Bourgeault May 19, 2006 According to a report by Pheedo (Pheed Read Spring 2006), some ads placed in RSS feeds are getting higher click-through rates than regualar online image ads. The average CTR of standalone RSS ads is 2.76 percent, while inline RSS ads... Continue Reading Posted at 7:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Ask.com is focusing on the right things Gary Bourgeault May 19, 2006 One of the reasons and strengths that ask.com has over its rivals Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO) is that it isn't soley dependent upon search to get all its revenue. This gives them the ability and affordability to take some... Continue Reading Posted at 3:55 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May18	Learning to get them to go deep and wide Gary Bourgeault May 18, 2006 We always hear about the fact that content is king - and it is true. But everybody has content. What is it about your content that will separate you in the eyes of those viewing your site? One of... Continue Reading Posted at 9:40 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Yahoo CFO says they should be able to outperform the overall Internet Industry Gary Bourgeault May 18, 2006 Yahoo Inc. Chief Financial Officer Sue Decker commented on Wednesday that the company should be able to grow faster than the overall Internet industry for the next few years, although it will come it at the lower end of the... Continue Reading Posted at 8:53 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google learns a hard lesson with its Video service Gary Bourgeault May 18, 2006 Thealphamarketer.com always talks about simplifying your visitors experience and eliminating as many steps as possible between what the customer needs to do to accomplish their task. Google (GOOG) learned this the hard way as their video service forced users to... Continue Reading Posted at 2:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May17	Eliot Spitzer needs to be put on trial Gary Bourgeault May 17, 2006 The benevolent (gag) New York Attorney General and gubernatorial wannabe wants to put a chicken in every basket, ah, I mean affordable broadband in all New Yorkers homes. Businessweek writer Burt Helm reports: "If elected, Spitzer said he wants to... Continue Reading Posted at 11:13 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	A sure way to win new customers (and keep old ones) Gary Bourgeault May 17, 2006 Do you want to know how to be ridiculously successful in any business - including online marketing? It sounds so simple that it seems obvious, but delivering on it is anything but that. Here it is: figure out ways... Continue Reading Posted at 4:45 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May16	How a blog or Web site can complement one another Gary Bourgeault May 16, 2006 One of the secrets of online marketers that isn't published or talked about a lot (although I've revealed it before here) is the way they create one blog or Web site for the purpose of sending traffic to another... Continue Reading Posted at 6:54 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Does Innovation Matter Anymore? Gary Bourgeault May 16, 2006 All the tech companies seem to be in a copycat mode lately. You hear all over the Web, AOL's (TWX) home page design being copied by Yahoo. Then you have Skype announcing on Monday that you will now be able... Continue Reading Posted at 4:08 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May15	Can Google compete with its current business culture? Gary Bourgeault May 15, 2006 In a hosted "informal" gathering for the press and analysts last week, some came away from it wondering if Google (GOOG) will have the resolve to compete head-on with Microsoft (MSFT). While saying that she appreciated the friendliness shown by... Continue Reading Posted at 9:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	U.K. Web-based companies fail at customer service Gary Bourgeault May 15, 2006 Internet service company Transveral did its annual customer service analysis of 100 of the top website and discovered that almost 70% could answer less than 40% of the 10 questions most asked by customers. Only a dismal 16 percent could... Continue Reading Posted at 5:29 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May13	Could Web 2.0 be legislated out of existence? Gary Bourgeault May 13, 2006 Ah, election year politics. In a measure appropriately called (DOPA) Deleting Online Predators Act, the House of Representatives has proposed a bill on May 9 that block complete access to social networks and other interactive sites in the majority of... Continue Reading Posted at 11:36 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Seth Godin interview on Marketing Gary Bourgeault May 13, 2006 Ina Steiner from auctionbytes.tv does a short interview with Seth Godin (13 minutes) that was very good and had some great internet marketing tips that you can learn from. Seth talks about profiting from online auctions and the way you... Continue Reading Posted at 7:42 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Social-Networking Sites still showing healthy growth Gary Bourgeault May 13, 2006 Almost half of all serious Internet users visited a social-networking Web site last month reported Nielsen//MetRatings. They added that all the big players in this field enjoyed huge growth in the last year. The huge big numbers that are drawn... Continue Reading Posted at 3:18 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	New survey reveals media habits of US executives Gary Bourgeault May 13, 2006 Ipsos Media in a recent poll reported that the top U.S. executives believe that the internet if the most important aspect of a business title's overall offering. The survey revealed that almost 70 percent of executives that were questioned believed... Continue Reading Posted at 2:53 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May12	The exploding Hispanic market in the U.S Gary Bourgeault May 12, 2006 The recent merging of Yahoo and GE's Telemundo Network made me think again of the burgeoning Hispanic market in the U.S. I've mentioned before on this blog, but it's worth repeating: the Hispanic market in the U.S. is estimated within... Continue Reading Posted at 7:56 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Lucid Marketing study gives insight into WOM behaviors Gary Bourgeault May 12, 2006 Lucid Marketing conducted a recent study called "U.S. Adults: Word of Mouth Communications." The study showed a number of valuable statistics to help you target specific demographics. Here are some of the behaviors they uncovered: Full time employees make as... Continue Reading Posted at 7:08 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google Trends looks great for online marketers Gary Bourgeault May 12, 2006 Larry Page, left, and Sergey Brin at Google's Press Day a Google (GOOG) in response to attacks by Microsoft (MSFT) on their core business of search, is launching some new applications that attempt to strengthen that part of the business... Continue Reading Posted at 5:43 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Steve Ballmer hits back at Google Gary Bourgeault May 12, 2006 We talked about the ridiculous complaint by Google (GOOG) recently concerning their attempt to paint the new Microsoft IE 7 browser as an attempt at a monopoly. As I said in another post recently: "The bizarre complaint is odd when... Continue Reading Posted at 1:39 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May11	Internet usage stats worldwide Gary Bourgeault May 11, 2006 With the growing usage of the Internet outside of the U.S. and western countries, it is increasingly important to know where this growth is coming from for many online marketers. Top 15 Online Populations by Country, Among Visitors Age 15+*... Continue Reading Posted at 6:21 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Search is gradually changing toward relevancy Gary Bourgeault May 11, 2006 In a recent study desiged to uncover where viewers first looked on a search results page, where they first scanned a listing, and where they eventually clicked, there were some quite telling results. With Yahoo 84 percent of the first... Continue Reading Posted at 2:12 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Smaller online communities and subscription opportunities Gary Bourgeault May 11, 2006 All of you reading this have probably been to MySpace and YouTube, two huge online community centers. They give a good snapshot into great opportunities in the years ahead for niche marketers. How many customers and members of a community... Continue Reading Posted at 1:37 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May10	Search engine companies should stay with what they know Gary Bourgeault May 10, 2006 The search engine industry may be stepping way beyond its measure as it looks like they're going beyond their purpose and expertise. They seem to be going with just any wind of a supposed trend. As the word has gotten... Continue Reading Posted at 11:18 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	They say blogging doesn't have power? Gary Bourgeault May 10, 2006 Warner Kremer Paino Advertising, which filed a strange lawsuit last month against a blogger for revealing and criticizing their online advertising campaign, has went capitulated. After Lance Dutson, the recipient of the suit, began his criticism of the campaign, which... Continue Reading Posted at 2:35 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 9	The real secret to online success is invisible Gary Bourgeault May 9, 2006 There is a secret out there that a lot of people know concerning diets: for the most part they all work! It is never the diet that is the problem, it is always the one attempting it. What does this... Continue Reading Posted at 10:38 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Online, interactive customer service will trend for years Gary Bourgeault May 9, 2006 With its dropping membership along with an increase in quality online help, AOL has announced that it is cutting 1,300 customer-service jobs, with 900 of them being immediately. Their Jacksonville, Fla. call center is being closed entirely. AOL's original subscription... Continue Reading Posted at 9:48 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Most Men's print magazines are taking a beating! Gary Bourgeault May 9, 2006 In the continuing upheavel across all media, we are now hearing about the huge exodus of advertisers from men's magazines and moving to where most the young men go: online to interactive media. A large number of magazines are struggling... Continue Reading Posted at 5:53 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	An easy to implement, front-end email strategy Gary Bourgeault May 9, 2006 While on the subject of email, here is a simply thing you can do when someone opts-in to your ezine. This makes sense only if you have double opt-in. I hope you do, it can save you a lot... Continue Reading Posted at 3:54 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 8	Don't follow the herd: A quick look at e-mail Gary Bourgeault May 8, 2006 Search is probably given far more attention than any other vehicle for monetizing your online marketing success. While it does play a big part, it is far from being the only big thing. As stories about e-mail have been circulating... Continue Reading Posted at 4:48 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 7	Sponsored Clicks becoming more Important Gary Bourgeault May 7, 2006 Peter Daboll, President and CEO of comScore Media Metrix, recently said "With the number of sponsored clicks representing a significant driver of search engine revenue... approximately 11.4 percent of Yahoo! and 11.8 percent of Google's searches resulted in a click... Continue Reading Posted at 3:29 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	eBay is Integrating Skype, Paypal; to start their own Online Advertising Service Gary Bourgeault May 7, 2006 Concerning announcements by eBay about the integration of eBay, Skype and Paypal AuctionBytes.com reported: "Across all of our businesses, we see greater opportunities for future growth than ever before," said Meg Whitman, President and CEO, eBay Inc. "Each of our... Continue Reading Posted at 12:34 AM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 6	Two competing consumer demands Gary Bourgeault May 6, 2006 One of the great oddities concerning innovation is its double-edged sword. On one hand there is a demand from consumers for more features, functions and power, but even more in demand is that it must be absolutely simple to use.... Continue Reading Posted at 5:31 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google is being sued over child porn payments Gary Bourgeault May 6, 2006 This is a problem online companies better take more seriously. All over the Web people are blogging about the MySpace allowance of pornography and sites not suitable for young viewers. Google (GOOG) has been talked about before concerning its negligence in... Continue Reading Posted at 4:23 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 5	Understanding what content really is Gary Bourgeault May 5, 2006 We recently talked about a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey. It revealed that approximately 60 million Americans used the Web to help them in making important decisions in their lives during the last two years. Another result of... Continue Reading Posted at 3:04 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Mobile marketing convergence is almost here Gary Bourgeault May 5, 2006 There are three types of data that need to be included in an effective targeting platform for mobiles. First you have to have the general data. That which most of us think of when we use the term such as... Continue Reading Posted at 2:41 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	The Mobile advertising challenge Gary Bourgeault May 5, 2006 Mobile advertising has some of the same problems that online advertising has: consumers want good, quality, relevant content but don't want to be bothered by spam or things irrelevant to their lives. While the mobile carriers need higher quality content... Continue Reading Posted at 2:22 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 4	The Internet is fully geekified Gary Bourgeault May 4, 2006 I have been debating whether I wanted to share this with you or not. It is one of those things that will be changing everything on the Internet. No, not will be, it already is and has. What is this... Continue Reading Posted at 11:04 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Why YouTube and MySpace hit the Internet holy grail Gary Bourgeault May 4, 2006 You now know the way. We have talked about here and others have for years about technology being for the consumer, not for the business. Now when you consider the simplicity of YouTube and MySpace, it's not hard to figure... Continue Reading Posted at 11:00 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	A three-step simple online marketing formula Gary Bourgeault May 4, 2006 One of those little secrets that people don't like going around too much is the power of the Internet to reach niche markets. Now this doesn't sound too much like a secret as it seems everybody talks about it. The... Continue Reading Posted at 8:33 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	One Google Adwords mistake to avoid Gary Bourgeault May 4, 2006 One Google (GOOG) Adwords mistake that I still find quite a large number of companies doing is to take the easy route of pointing their destination URL to their homepage rather than taking a little time to deterimine the best... Continue Reading Posted at 12:43 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
May 3	One of the customer traits all online marketers need to know Gary Bourgeault May 3, 2006 As broadband usage continues and consumers demand more flexibility and a variety of content, a major trend has been revealed and understood by many of the major players. Now you can take advantage of this knowledge. What is this ongoing... Continue Reading

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