There have been several new developments in the search engine world recently:

1. Launches new program for AdWords advertisers called Jumpstart, to help new advertisers select keywords, write ads and choose bids. Reported by Clickz.com

2. Yahoo adds storage to fee email, Google begins selling graphic ads on network, Yahoo replaces Google on CNN, and so on. Good stuff from CNET


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I noticed a few articles recently about keyword optimized press releases. It's good to see the concept starting to attract a broader audience. News sites like Yahoo News and Google News have more readers than CNN and BBC, and in order to find a particular story or release, you have to search for it. So while there's a broad audience, the viewers of a particular story or release have pulled themselves to it via search - and that qualifies them a bit as a prospect in terms of the marketing value. That's the beauty of search marketing - visitors pull themselves to your message rather than the message being pushed out to them.

Since most press releases are written "poetically" or "romantically" to evoke an emotional response in a person, the language used is not necessarily conducive to the categorization according to content relevant keywords. It's important to take into account that thousands of documents are published every day on news sites and while news search engine sites like Google News and Yahoo News do a good job of categorizing them, visibility of your release to the millions of news site visitors will be significantly greater if keyword optimization is used.

So, how do you keyword optimize a press release? What's important to know is that the release needs to be meaningful to a computer program that's going to use an algorithm to categorize it. I call it, "writing for the machine". Basically, keyword optimized press releases can rank very highly for long periods of time both on the new web sites and in natural search engine rankings when relevant keywords are used in the right places and frequency. At the same time, the release needs to communicate effectively and creatively to the people that will search for and read it.

To track the effectiveness of keyword optimized releases, include full web site urls to a relevant page on your web site. Driving targeted traffic (remember, they had to search to find the document) to your web site via an optimized press release is most effective when you offer a call to action - driving the visitor to a specially designed landing page on your web site.

This is turning into an article, so I will post more on the topic in future posts.

eMarketer Article
Clickz Article

Small and Medium Businesses Rely on Online Research for Technology Purchasing Decisions "59 percent use search engines on a daily basis." - From MediaDailyNews. Based on research sponsored by Yahoo! and Grey Global Group and conducted by IDC.

Here's another report supporting the notion that technology marketers needs to emphasis their online marketing component - especially search. I'm continuously amazed at how many technology solutions companies do not effectively market themselves via search engines. The market is there, searching products and solutions every day.

Too many rely on their web designers/developers to perform site optimization when most do not have the necessary skills or time to keep up on the constant changes in the search industry. It takes time and effort to get the basics down and more time and effort to stay on top of what's current - both from a strategic and tactical perspective.

The article from MediaDailyNews points out that marketers need to craft their message accordingly for SMB's using the web to research technology solutions. The implementation of that strategy is as key online as it is offline. Buyers will click on links to sites they know and trust. i.e. a #1 ranking of an unknown company will get a lower conversion than a #2 ranking for a known company. How that company gets "known" is through online and offline promotion.

That's enough of a rant for now....

Vote for Online Marketing Blog - Marketing Sherpa is taking votes for favorite marketing and PR blogs. Vote for the blogs listed. The TopRank Online Marketing Blog is a write-in on #7. Thanks! Lee


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Blogger Launches Updated Format and Functionality - Very cool. A mix of new features makes Blogging at Blogger.com even easier and more fun.

Official Google Blog Goes Live - It's nice to see this initiative as with events this year, many will be curious about happenings at Google.

Google is close to releasing new keyword tools - The tools will develop automated lists of keyword combinations that are likely to turn up in search queries, thereby increasing the number of matches. From news.com
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Tacoda Systems Testing Audience Match - Search Engine Advertising to reach specific demographics. From CNET News.com

Study shows searches prone to click on unpaid, or "natural" search results. From DMNews
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http://pingomatic.com/
"By sending a small ping to each service you let them know you've updated so they can come check you out. They get the freshest data possible, you don't get a thousand robots spidering your site all the time. Everybody wins."

http://www.blogpatrol.com/
Free Blog Stats Tool

Atom to RSS Conversion Many syndication services only take RSS format, so this free tool is very handy.

http://www.bloglet.com/
Free tool enables you to email subscribers with updates to your blog.
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The new Seth Godin eBook featuring TopRank Search Engine Optimization was made available this week: Download for free - BULLMARKET 2004 :: COMPANIES THAT CAN HELP YOU MAKE THINGS HAPPEN (PDF format)

My Gmail account is working great. I am definitely a fan of the the message organization and the slick JavaScript used for functionality. The message thread-style of archiving messages works well. It's interesting what some of the people offered Gmail accounts are doing though.

Searchers find organic search results more relevant - from Internet Retailer

Secondary PPC networks become more popular as bidding competition rises on Google and Overture. From BtoB

Inside story on Google during IPO - from Google Weblog

There's enough press out there on the Google IPO - no need for me to add anything more.