We Do Search Engine Optimization.

Google AdWords Uses Quality Score to Determine How Much You Pay Per Click

The Google PPC system does not simply work on the basic algorithm of the higher your bid per click, the higher your position. Ads are positioned using a dynamic bidding system which does millions of calculations per day to adjust results in a real time auction system.

Quality Score is a biased bidding system, which rewards advertisers for higher numbers of ad clicks. The more clicks your ad garners, the lower price you will have to pay relative to your competitors.

How to improve your quality score

1. increase your click through rate (CTR)
2. focus on keyword relevancy
3. improve landing page quality – relevant, transparent and directly related to your keyword bids increase page load time

Even increasing your CTR by 0.01% a can be enough to bump your aggregate keyword quality score up and reduce your overall costs dramatically.

Last night I was fortunate to attend the Stars of Search Optimization from TechBiz Connection in Irvine.

This is a networking event for Southern California tech companies and internet entrepreneurs and is attended by a well heeled but approachable group of industry stalwarts.

I have seen many of these speakers at past SES and Pubcon events but it is always good to hear their ideas and opinions on SEO and search engine success.

Topics covered in this interactive site review session:

• How and Why your site is positioned where it is.
• What you can do to improve your content.
• How to evaluate your links and build the most relevant “link juice”.
• Avoiding canonical issues with multiple page versions
• Beating duplicate content
• Why to avoid keyword stuffing and overusing keyphrases
• Title tags are not a wishlist – do not create a 20 word comma separated title
• How to avoid the penalties of “spamming”.
• What You can Learn from your competitors.

These individuals were lively, entertaining and had great comments on the half dozen reviewed websites. They pulled no punches and gave straightforward practical advice while explaining the basics of search engine optimization to the group.

The 4 Presenters:

Joe Morin – “I got Rand Fishkin Married”

Greg Boser – “I hate local search” & “I have a google spam tool named after me for catching redirects”

Kevin M. Ryan – “I love advertising with mayhem, fire, and destruction (when appropriate”

Michael Bonfils – “Loves to work with big corporate accounts such as Gap, which Greag Boser also hates.”

A list of the reviewed websites, lets see how long it will take them to implement the advice from this meeting. The regular cost for a private SEO consultation is valued at around $600.

These sites were given a free SEO review

TechBiz Connection is a great technology event in Southern California and has a coupon code for an event discount. Use this free promotion code during registration.

Naming products and service solutions is a tricky business, and at times I have spent a disproportionate amount of time working on a good name for a business venture than the technical aspects of a business.

Good names are a key to long term success.

My favorite branding example is Google, which created the #1 most recognizable name in the world after only 6 years in existence, with zero advertising.

Compare this with the new Network Solutions service offering, which is a recipe for customer confusion. NetSol is trying to make themselves cool and rename all standard services. This will not work. Renaming “domain name” to “nsWebAddress” is just a bad idea and guaranteed to fill their support line with questions.

I just received this email in my inbox, a thinly veiled attempt at sucking money out of me to register .asia domain names. Be watchful of notices to register domains to protect your trademark and intellectual property in International areas. The most common I have seen are Chinese .cn domains and .cm domain names.

Before registering any domain name with an exotic extension, make sure you contact your webmaster or local accredited domain name registrar such as NetworkSolutions, Godaddy, or Enom.com

This is the email I received:

Dear CEO & Principal

We are a domain name registration and dispute organization in Asia, which mainly deal with the global companies’ domain name registration and internet Intellectual property right protection in Asia. Currently, we have a pretty important issue needing to confirm with your company.

On Aug 10, 2009, we received an application formally. One company named “FJS Holdings Ltd” wanted to applied for the internet keyword “Netpaths” and some domain names through our body.

Now we are handling with the registration of these domain names and find that the keyword of these domain names and internet keyword is identical with your company’s. So we have to confirm with you at two points:
1. If your company consign FJS Holdings to register these domain names and internet keyword, we will send application form to them and help them finish the registration at once.
2. If your company have nothing to do with FJS Holdings, they maybe have other purposes to register these domain names and internet keyword.

In order to deal with this issue better, please contact us by email or telephone ASAP.

Best Regards,
Tim Hu
Auditing Department
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tel: +852-2297-9279
Fax: +852-2297-9209
Email: Tim@eworld.hk
Email: Tim@eworlddnr.hk
Website:

http://www.eworld.hk

Tim

The Pubcon search engine marketing and webmaster conference & expo will be held in Las Vegas November 10-13, 2009 in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, USA. All the top SEO’s will be there, and we usually give up a lot of insider information. SEO’s really share their tips and tricks for getting it on with Google. Click here to get your pubcon discount code.

This is a fun conference with tons of afterparties. One of the coolest parties last year was at the Wynn casino in the bar next to the huge pool and waterfall.

Pubcon coupon code: lv-79815

Pubcon webmasterworld covers search engine optimization, online marketing, link building, social media marketing SMM, search engine marketing, domains and domaining, internet video and making money online.

Register today with this coupon code lv-79815 to save 15% off the current advertised price (which is $899 until August 20th, then it goes up to $999). Pubcon now has an affiliate program at this time, and you can signup to get your links at www.Pubcon.com/affiliates.

Most companies turn to outside consultants, focus groups and media relations firms to try to understand their market.

Apple creates products like a monarchy, with all big decisions flowing down from Emperor Steve.

Here is a quote from Steve Jobs saying that Apple doesn’t do market research from a post arguing why no one innovates like Apple.

“We do no market research. We don’t hire consultants. The only consultants I’ve ever hired in my 10 years is one firm to analyze Gateway’s retail strategy so I would not make some of the same mistakes they made [when launching Apple's retail stores]. But we never hire consultants, per se. We just want to make great products.”

Mr. Jobs elaborates the Apple design design philosophy from Fortune.

“It’s not about pop culture, and it’s not about fooling people, and it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t. We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do.”

Jonathan Ive, Apple product design VP, explains how Apple’s primary goal is not to make money, but to make great products that people will love.

“Apple’s goal isn’t to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products… We trust as a consequence of that, people will like them, and as another consequence we’ll make some money. But we’re really clear about what our goals are.”

Apple has a very clear vision: Make the very best products that people will love to use, business will follow.

Read more at Bokardo.

Read more about the Stompernet video about Referential Integrity and how to capitalize on the advanced search engine research from the stomper search marketing team.

There is a new way to access the unlimited datastore of the internet using google docs and the web.

Google spreadsheets has a feature called GoogleLookup that lets you do real time automated lookups through their spreadsheet feature.

What makes GoogleLookup really cool is that it references data not only from your spreadsheet (as with functions like =SUM(A1:A12)), but searches that incredibly expansive body of published information directly from the web. By performing a specific websearch, GoogleLookup attempts to return facts about the entity you specify. City populations are a nice example. Entering =GoogleLookup(”Los Angeles”, “population”) in any spreadsheet cell will automatically retrieve the number of people living in Los Angeles.

It is not perfect, and if you choose a value with multiple locations such as Portland, it may be incorrect. It is important to verify any auto-generated data before using.

Google just created a simple API to access the unstructured data online.

Read more about GoogleLookup from beahburger.

In the book “Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig a father tries to teach his son the basics of life, which also happens to coincide with the basics of business.

People who do more than the basics and actively listen and help people will succeed. Companies that do more than only what is required are rewarded with happier customers, more referrals and better profits.

A few pleasant surprises

I called ATT Wireless I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by a friendly US based worker who was genuinely happy to talk with me. I had a problem with extra international roaming charges, and was billed an extra month for ATT world connect.

The ATT rep cheerfully removed this charge and apologized because her ribs were hurting from being thrown from a horse the previous weekend. She said it hurt to laugh, which she frequently did. In 5 minutes I was on my happy way.

Alaska Air is the default airline on the West Coast and I have had positive experiences with them. Their customer service is helpful and generally very effective. After booking a flight I found an online fair for $50 less than what I had paid. After some negotiations with them, Alaska agreed to give me a $50 voucher for my next ticket.

In the extremely competitive, low margin air travel market I think this was a deal and thank Alaska very much.

Not so good service

I received a free printer from Hewlett Packard and tried to install the driver on my Mac. No luck, the computer would not recognize the printer. So I had to call tech support and work with them for 1 hour to resolve the problem.

I had to download the latest driver (190MB, HP how in the heck does it take this much code to run a printer?) from their extremely unfriendly, unclear and unusable website. If HP had just taken the time to install the latest driver in the printer box, they would have saved themselves the support call, which probably ate up their profit margin on the printer.

Paypal still has nearly nonexistant customer service, and tries to hide their phone number as best they can 402-935-7733. They have the nearly useless “Ask Jenn” automated help robot that sometimes answers general questions.

If you have a detailed question, expect to wait 1 week+ for an answer from a non US based support center.

I think this post will grow as new customer service situations present themselves.

From the department of D’oh – several SEO firms are trying to get their job listings placed in front of applicants by keyword stuffing their postings.

See this screenshot for examples of recent listings for SEO/SEM positions.

I know you have to mention that you are a search engine optimization firm in the job posting, but your keyword density should be below 10%.

This just encourages applicants who wish stuff keywords on client websites, not a good way to begin a career in online marketing.

SEO jobs are a hot position at the moment, but candidates should carefully screen job postings so they don’t end up in an unreputable shop.