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Google AdWords Improvements (Part 2)
2007-12-12 08:55:00
The 2nd feature of Google AdWords that has seen improvements added is the Ad Diagnostics Tool. Basically, the tool is for those keywords you believe your AdWords ad should be showing for - but itsn’t. It can be very frustrating to aim an ad at a specific audience and/or keyword phrase and come up empty. The ...
More About: General , Google Adwords , Adwords

Google AdWords Upgrades Its Features
2007-12-11 08:18:00
Are you a Google AdWords user/advertiser? Google AdWords has added a couple of new features to aid you (and me) in running your campaigns. Here’s the breakdown: IMPROVEMENT #1 - Location Targeting If you used the AdWords geographic targeting tool before, you know that you chose could choose areas, but if you only wanted to choose one ...
More About: General , Features , Google Adwords

Search Engine & Internet Advertising Hits Another Landmark
2007-12-05 02:00:00
According to ZenithOptimedia (try spelling that 5 times fast), Internet advertisings will pass radio next year, making its piece of the global advertising pie that much bigger. This is a massive gain in a short period of time. Then again, that’s been the story of the Internet from 1995 on. What does that mean to you? ...
More About: Advertising , General , Search , Search Engine

Holiday Shopping Started - Local Style
2007-11-24 03:21:00
The Honolulu Advertiser had the usual story on the insane lengths shoppers go to on the day after Thanksgiving. One was a lady who stood in line 10 hours at a local Wal Mart(!). The article also reported that many people were telling reporters that this year would see a smaller budget. The cost of ...
More About: Shopping , Holiday , General , Words , Style

SEO Tip - Check Your Site Links
2007-11-20 00:53:00
People often forget to do regular checks on their site. For exampe - are you absolutely sure that every picture on your site actually shows up? I’ve learned the hard way that one wrong letter in the path can screw things up. Having a ‘broken picture’ icon proudly displayed on one of your pages can ...
More About: Yahoo , General , Links , Words , Site

New Hawaii Record Label
2007-11-17 01:24:00
A new Hawaii record label has just started, run by the Baraquio family. Locals will know the sisters from their tv show, Living Local. The first release is coming out next week, a CD entitled ‘Lost & Found’. The Baraquios have shown a great understanding of not only the right way to do business, but ...
More About: Label , Record , Cord

Google Update Going On - PageRank Drops Common
2007-11-04 06:58:00
This is old news in some ways, but the update is still happening so I consider it fair game. You may have experienced a drop in both PageRank and keyword rankings. This seems to be a bigger update than usual. Google ’s new system, introduced in the last couple of years, was supposedly to be one of ...
More About: Pagerank , General , Words , Update

Hawaii ?Local Businesses? - Get Moving Online or Get Extinct
2007-11-01 23:45:00
Hawaii is always behind the Mainland on trends and developments. Some say we’re 10 years behind, some say 5. That lag may have shortened due to the Internet, but it still exists. Frankly, the Islands’ slower movement forward is fine with me. While I lived on the Mainland I grew tired of the new ‘thing’ ...
More About: Hawaii , General , Moving , Local , Online

Your Site Map - Make It Easy to Find By Humans & Search Engine Bots Alike
2007-10-25 12:23:00
I’m always surprised by sites that either do not have a sitemap (or is it site map? I never know) or hide it away. It’s like they’re ashamed of it. They shouldn’t be, because it’s an important part of any web site. Some visitors actually look for the site map immediately on arriving. For others ...
More About: Yahoo , General , Search , Search Engine , Words

Web Usability Takes Target to Court
2007-10-12 09:24:00
Target is being taken to court. Is it because of employee/employer issues? No. Is it because of unsafe products they sold? No. Is it because of alleged discrimination against a customer? No, but you’re getting warmer. The National Federation of the Blind is taking Target to court over their web site. Specifically, the fact that they ...
More About: General , Usability , Target , Court , Sabi

SEM & SEO Equally Effective
2007-09-25 01:00:00
Marketing Sherpa just came out with the results of a new survey. They polled 2500 Search Engine marketers/marketing firms and found that SEO and SEM ran neck and neck. At least with the marketers. This doesn’t surprise me. I’ve found that search advertising, such as AdWords , is as profitable and beneficial to business as search optimization. ...
More About: Yahoo , General , Effective , Ally

SEO Tip - Don?t Forget Your Image Names
2007-09-14 10:02:00
In the past, optimization for images & graphics consisted of stuffing keywords into the ALT tag. This tactic was so abused that Google no longer takes the ALT tag as seriously as it once did. Still, it’s worth using that outlet for a keyword or 2, as long as it’s done with a lighter touch. The ...
More About: General , Words , Image , Forge , Names

FACT: Offline Advertising/Marketing Affects Search Behavior
2007-08-28 08:46:00
It looks like the other side of the coin is valid as well. A couple of posts back I wrote about studies that showed how search directly influenced offline sales. Now, another study has come out, done by Jupiter Research. This time, the numbers told us something interesting about offline influencing online. According to the study, ...
More About: Marketing , Advertising , Offline , General , Behavior

Google Launches Click Fraud Center Online
2007-08-22 09:50:00
Google, more specifically Google AdWords , has just launched a new site dedicated solely to click fraud - info on it, info on fighting it, info on what they’re doing about it. At least that’s what they say the site will be. Right now there’s not much there: http://www.google.com/adwords/adtrafficqu ality/index.html Check it out for yourself. At the time ...
More About: Google , Fraud , General , Click

FACT: Your Online Advertising Increases Offline Sales
2007-08-08 02:04:00
2 new studies and their findings were revealed recently, one of them commissioned by Yahoo . The Yahoo study involved 175,00 subjects who were divided by theri exposure, or non-exposure, to online ads. Their demographics and ‘behavior’ patterns were identical otherwise. Very interesting data emerged that showed the strength online advertising gives to your offline sales: > ...
More About: Advertising , Online Advertising , Offline , General

Google Bans Squidoo - Make Your Own ?Squi-Don?t? Joke Here
2007-07-19 23:45:00
Google has been taking Squidoo pages out of its index today - and it looks like a house cleaning, not a case of taking out a few bad apples. Is it a case of the good being taken down with the bad or is the site’s problem that widespread? According to news and industry reports - ...
More About: Google , Joke , General , Words

Google: You Gotta Keep Em Separated!
2007-07-17 10:58:00
Google, or at least its Australian brand/version, is being sued by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The allegation being made is that Google is not making the distinction between paid listings and organic listings clear enough. This will be interesting to watch as it could affect the entire industry, advertisers included. This isn’t the ...
More About: Google , General , Words , Gott , Rate

What Have I Been Doing?
2007-07-06 07:59:00
Good Question. I’ve been gone to a family reunion. We all stayed in a large cabin near/in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It’s like Vegas gone Country, without the gambling or alcohol. A great example of knowing your market and fulfilling their expectations. The place is a cash cow. More on that later. I’ve also been writing articles ...
More About: Been , Doing

Hawaiian Language Might Take Over The Web
2007-06-07 04:37:00
Few need to be told about the Wikipedia - it’s a internet phenomenon that has helped make Web 2.0/User-created-content the latest revolution. Bigger than hip-hop! Hawaii residents were proud to see a Hawaiian word on something so important, even if the word didn’t represent the vital quality that made it so unique. ‘Wiki’ means ‘hurry’ ...
More About: Language

This Time I Mean It - I?m Back
2007-06-01 11:04:00
The past month has had its difficulties. Nothing like Lindsay Lohan Difficulties, but enought that my eye was taken off the ball for a little while. Now I’m back and swinging for the stands (VISUAL: Me standing at home plate, pointing to center field, Babe Ruth style). I’ve read a few good books lately, like the ...
More About: General , Time , Back

Back In the Swing of Things
2007-05-03 07:33:00
I’ve been unable to blog the past couple of weeks because my computer died. I believe it was the power supply of my G4, but I didn’t have the equipment to absolutely, positively confirm it. It surprised me that there could be so many varieties of G4 power supplies out there once I decided to ...
More About: Back , Things , Wing , Swing , Thing

Tell Search Engines Where Your Site Map Is Without Leaving Your Home (Page)
2007-04-18 00:38:00
Previously you read about that fact that Yahoo & Google had agreed on the Site Map standard; ie a Site Map file specially made for the search engine bots, usually an XML file, telling them the address of each page, when it was added, etc. Since I blogged about that the Big 2 search engines ...
More About: Search Engines , Home , Search , Page

We Lost A Legend
2007-04-16 06:01:00
As you may have read already, Hawaii, and the rest of the world, lost Don Ho. Not just a famous singer, but the biggest Hawaiian singer ever. Although he was wasn’t a strictly Hawaiian act - ‘Tiny Bubbles’ is more loung-pop than anything else - he was definitely of the Islands. He was the undisputed ...
More About: Lost , Legend

How To Market A City
2007-04-13 04:58:00
As I wrote (blogged?) before, my wife and I were just up in San Francisco. I hadn’t been there in some time. Having lived here, where preservation is a big issue, as well as reaching an age that brings appreciation of day-to-day things, I saw SF with different eyes this time. What amazed me was, ...
More About: How To , Market , City , Mark

Marketing - What We Can Learn From My Dog Nigel
2007-04-09 03:00:00
It’s been a little while since last posting. I, and my wife, were up in Sonoma, CA and then down to San Francisco. I noticed some things there which I’ll blog about at some point, but the issue I wanted to address today is my dog Nigel - a marketing savant. Why do I say that? ...
More About: Marketing , Market , What , Hat , Earn

Redirects - How They Can Make All Your Marketing Worthless
2007-03-20 05:27:00
Let’s say you’re walking down the street, on the way to buy some new T-Shirts. The ones you have are stretched in the neck, have holes plus they have stains. None of those stains resemble any of the Church-recognized Saints or Star Wars characters, so you can’t sell them. Even if you could, you still ...
More About: Marketing , Market , Direct , Your , They

Search Engine Marketing/Advertising & SEO - It?s Not an Either/Or
2007-03-13 06:43:00
As I have probably said before in this blog, I’m mystified by clients and prospects who say they don’t want to do a search engine advertising campaign because ‘you have to pay for those’. It surprises me because they seem to see this kind of marketing as somehow different. It’s like saying that they wouldn’t ...
More About: Marketing , Advertising , Market , Search Engine Marketing , Search

Market Research For Cheap!
2007-02-24 20:06:09
Market research was one of those subjects that people would study only if they were gunning for the corporate world. Small businesses can’t afford to hire someone to do that- not full time, at least. For them, market research would be something along the lines of asking locals ‘How do you look that new gum we got?’ after ringing up their purchase. Today - that has changed. Now these same businesses can IM ‘How do U lik tht nw gum?’ online and by phone! But that’s not where the big leap has taken place. Most users of Google AdWords have completely missed the fact that they have a market research tool right in front of them. And a lot of that research can be done for less than $100. When you test ads on AdWords, you’re not only getting feedback on which ad is better, you’re also getting an insight into your market. Are people responding more to an appeal based around price rather than features? That’s telling you something very imp...
More About: Research , Market , Market research , Search , Cheap

The Metrics System
2007-02-14 07:57:06
I can still remember as a child being taught the metric system in school. This was in the late 1970’s when we were convinced that it would take over in the US, leaving the Inch and the Quart by the curb to be picked up by the Standards Garbage Man and taken to the dump. There they would spend the rest of their days reminiscing with the Sheckel and the Cubit while they passed around a bottle of White Lightning. “Man, everybody knew me. I’m telling you. Now even Milligram won’t return my calls. He used to beg me to hang out. BEG ME!” That’s just a brief digression that was prompted by the subject of Web Metric s . That word ‘Metrics’ has a few meanings for me, hence the reminiscing. Any Internet Marketer worth his salt, or his pepper, will tell you how important Web Metrics/Analytics are; if you’re not using them, you’re missing the most effective path of marketing - measuring response in order to learn how to increase it. For ...
More About: System , Stem

Customer Loyalty - Part 2
2007-02-14 07:57:06
If there is a Business Hall of Fame, one of my first nominees would be Mr. Terence Iwamoto, owner and proprieter of ‘Mr. Ink Plus’ here in Honolulu. Like many inkjet printer owners, the cost of ink has always amazed me - or maybe that should be ‘angered me’. When my HP’s black ink went dry I went ballistic. Why? Because I literally had printed only 10 pages with an ink cartridge that was brand new (the inkjet was brand new as well, btw). There must be some defect here, right? Wrong. I went to Mr. Ink Plus to sort this out. After telling Mr. Iwamoto about this ‘freak’ inkjet occurrence, he pulled out 2 HP ink cartridges he had cut the tops off of for exactly this situation. The first cartridge was the old standard HP black ink cartridge. I was shocked to see that only about 1/3 or less of the inside was set aside to hold ink. But that was nothing compared to the ‘New’ HP black cartridge. The new one, which I believe is #92, was se...
More About: Customer , Part , Loyalty , Custom