by Diana Adams

In my last post I identified where paid ads display on the different search networks. This time I thought I'd create a brief outline of what the ads themselves actually look like, and explain some of the basic 'rules' associated with each search network.

Basically, all ads include three parts that you see, and one that you don't. The parts that we see displayed include Headline, one or two Description lines, and a Display URL. The part that we don't actually see is the Destination URL, which is not identical to the Display URL. It determines which page the searcher will land on when they click the ad (referred to as the landing page).

Simple enough? Well, yes, and no. There are rules that are applied to each of the ad lines, rules that control precisely just how...

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by Ross DunnOver the past few days Ihave inexplicably come across a number of marketing tools that were new to me;I am not sure if it was by chance or a lot were just released or something. Anyway,I am still testing a few of the more promising ones but one free tool called 4Qcould really help many a webmaster understand their visitors better.

4 Questions (4Q)

Have you ever wondered why your website isn't functioning as well as youoriginally anticipated? Or perhaps you are seeing some very odd fluctuations intraffic and you wish you could ask your visitors what is going through theirminds? Well now there is an easy way to get these answers and it is theclassiest solution I have seen so far... and better yet it is free! Enter 4Q, the brainchild of analytics guru...

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by Jennifer Laycock

It's no secret consumer generated content is hot. Both McDonald's and Apple have bought the rights to content found on YouTube and turned them into commercials in recent months. Consumer generated content has a "real" feeling to it and can often be purchased for far less than the cost of custom created ads. So I'm wondering, why haven't more small businesses thought of exploring this option?

Big companies are already scouring sites like YouTube. In fact, the team at Apple recently spotted this gem:

The New York Times reports the ad was created by 18-year old Nick Haley, an Apple fan from England. Haley created the ad on his Mac and uploaded it to YouTube. The spot had only received a few thousand views when Haley got an email from an Apple's ad agency...

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by Jennifer Laycock

If you are a Google AdWords advertiser and rely on Google's conversion feature to help you figure out your campaign budgets, you'll be interested to learn more about some conversion tracking features they put into place last month. John over at PPC Hero has a nice write up on the features and how you can apply them.

John explains:

Conversions can now be segmented as one of the following types:

- Leads - Purchase/Sale - Sign-Up - Pageview - "Other"

Within each conversion type, you can create any number of actions. For example, let's say you are selling neck ties for Father's Day. This is a limited time offer and a very specific sale. So, you would click on "Create a New Action" and select "Purchase/Sale" to choose the right...

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by Sage Lewis

This week, Sage addresses Shoemoney's article "SEO Has No Future," in which Shoemoney talks about Google-influenced search results and the pervasive problem of web spam in the industry. Sage proposes that the article is possibly nothing more than a link baiting ploy and that the industry maintain focus on optimizing the visitor's experience. Google looks to increase visitor experiences by including landing page loading time as a quality score factor in Google AdWords by mid-June, and they are in preview release stages of a new, comprehensive, sophisticated, integrated social media tool called Google Friends Connect.

Want more from your web site?

Search Influence can help! Targeted Traffic. Increased Revenue. Results Guaranteed. Customized Internet Marketing...

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by Stoney deGeyter

Securing the Domain Name

The other day I was in a race to buy a domain name. A personal title I had been throwing around for fun with my friends suddenly got broadcast to thousands of people in a blog post. As I read my clever little title, available for all eyes to see, I suddenly realized that I need to buy that domain name before someone else does.

I immediately jumped to my favorite domain registrar, typed PimpMcFly.com (don't ask), found that it was available, and plunked down the $7 to make it mine. Once secure, I sat back and relaxed knowing that I was the proud owner of a completely useless domain name that nobody else can use.

For a week or two I did have some fun with it. Go ahead, check it out. I'll wait. Yeah, that's me in the pimp outfit. You...

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