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by: Anne Haynes

After a several hours of tooling around with Knol I finally sent an email to the Google Knol team asking several questions see the Knol questions in this blog post.

Following is the email reply that I recieved from the support team:

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Knol Help
Subject: Re: [#311279072] Please Help - Anne Haynes
To: Anne Haynes Home

Hello Anne,

Thank you for your reply and continued interest in Knol. Please note that
what you’ve described is expected behavior for recently published knols.

While you can share the URL to your knol directly with friends, there will
be a delay before your knol is reflected in search results. Please note
that your knols will still be visible to you, the author, before they are
made publicly searchable.

Additionally, we have noted that for some folks one or more of the methods
of name verification are not immediately working properly. We appreciate
the feedback you’ve provided as we improve this functionality. For
questions about name verification, please take a look a this help knol for
further details:
http://knol.google.com/k/knol-help/name-verification-faq/3vd571esbn0f5/1#H0-I-ve-tried-and-it-does-not-work

Thank you for your understanding and support of Knol.

The Knol Team

by: Anne Haynes

While this might not be a “totally” funny story, it’s interesting to say the least based on the look I received when I said “Twitter” in public.

So, I’m in the process of building out a big pay-per-click campaign. My client just launched a radio ad and the PPC campaign needed to be up ASAP. I called on one of my trusty industry friends to ask for help in making things happen within the time constraints and the phone calls started. Last night, when I was in line at Whole Foods, my friend called me. She was going into all these details and I was focused on placing my items on the conveyer belt and queuing behind the woman ahead of me. During this time I noticed the woman ahead of me was wearing a “Sprint” t-shirt. For those of you that don’t know Kansas, Sprint has a huge campus. If you’ve been to Cisco Systems headquarters it resembles Cisco but with a college look and feel. If you’ve ever visit Kansas for an extended period of time, you will meet someone that works at Sprint.

So, I’m in line talking back and forth on the phone about the PPC campaign and it dawns on me that – I’m not focused and for those of you that manage PPC campaigns you know how focus is tied to ROI. I quickly ask my friend, “Are you going to be on Twitter?” When I said Twitter, the Sprint woman did a drastic head move towards me. It was as if she was thinking – are you following me? Ahhhhahhhahhaa I laughed to myself.

Twitter is fun, Twitter is cool, Twitter is more interesting when in line for food!

I have 8 BrightKite invites if anyone wants one – just shoot me a message.

The word is out on the internet that Yahoo and Google will make a joint announcement at 1:30 PST today. While I’m still looking for more information on this topic, TechCrunch is reporting “we’ve heard from a reliable source close to one of the companies” that an announcement is in the works. Ok, so the word is out - if this happens this will crush the competition and make Google the master of all paid search advertising. This is a sad day in search - let’s remember before Google, Yahoo! was number 1. More on this story at TechCrunch

by: Anne Haynes

Ok, so in the past two weeks I’ve become a Twitter freak; I have Twitter on my cell phone, my Google Talk and a gadget on my iGoogle. Six months ago I received an invite to Twitter from a friend and totally ignored the invitation. Why in the world would anyone want to know “What I’m Doing”? And to think, now I’m playing catch up. It appears that all of the search marketing industry and innovative individuals are on Twitter.com and I’m slowing catching up.

My biggest find in two weeks was We Feel Fine.org. I’ve recently taken over a few PPC campaigns for thecandleshop.net and while we run out of budget every month, I’ve been impressed with my 69% increase in click-through-rates. I’m going to give We Feel Fine.org all the credit. I hang out on spyfu.com and try to figure out how to improve my PPC ads, but when you’ve seen one ad, you’ve seen them all. When I’m on We Feel Fine.org, not only does my mind get a break from the numbers, but I begin feeling again. And what propels people clicking on ads? Its feeling. A word I’d never use to describe a candle,is the word “pamper”. The number one ad in my campaign is titled “Scented Candles - Pamper Yourself”. I’ve also been using “Glass of Wine, Your Man and Your Scented Candles” and while the wine and man ad copy hasn’t been pulling the best CTRs, the word “Pamper” has made a difference. This word came from We Feel Fine.org.

Cheers to creating better ads!

Related Posts:
I Want You to Want Me by: Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar

by:Anne Haynes

Today, I listened to the premier or PPC Rock Starts on Webmasterradio.fm. Matt Van Wagner was interviewed and went into detail on dynamic keyword insertion or DKI. Van Wagner went into the different DKI features within Google, Yahoo! and MSN. He mentioned utilizing DKI will increased CTR when done correctly and decrease conversions when implemented incorrectly. The 25 character keyword title is important to consider when building in DKI. FindMeFaster.com is working on a DKI simulator for adwords - release date June 1, 2008.

When Van Wagners was asked about Quality Score and dynamic keyword insertion, he stated DKI increases the CTR and the CTR will increase the quality score.

I’ve been running my own testing and I’ve noticed a substation increase in CTR by implementing DKI. It’s interesting, how many people are misinformed within the industry. Just a few weeks ago I was talking to a search marketing firm and the VP stated they stopped using DKI because they weren’t seeing the results.

An important distinction Van Wagner speaks about that hasn’t received too much web converge is where the “keyword” that’s dynamically inserted into the advertisement comes from. I’ve read, from a few resources, that the keywords come from the user’s search query. Van Wagner states, “The keyword comes from the AdGroup.” While I don’t know for sure, my guess is the search engine reviews the user’s search query and displays the most relevant keyword within the AdGroup.

In one of my campaigns, I’ve seen a 69% increase in CTR from the same time-frame last month. The campaigns total CTR was .76% and I’ve increased it to 1.29%. Another factor that is increasing my click-through-rates is my crazy ad copy. I’m managing a candle ecommerce store and I’ve been using descriptive words like, pamper, relax, treat coupled with action words and it’s working well. I’m waiting for my conversion and ROAS tracking code to be put in place, but it’s going to be fun to watch the performance of the campaign!

I ran across a search engine that appeals to the Philanthropist in you. Good Search will give a dollar to the charity of your choice for every search you conduct at www.goodsearch.com The engine is powered by Yahoo! and it’s a good way to help save the planet, feed the children and make the world a better place everyday.

By: Anne Haynes

Today I watched the Search Marketing Now Blended Search webinar with Chris Sherman, Executive Editor for Search Engine Land. It was a great webinar and cleared up my understanding of the difference between Universal Search and Blended Search; Universal Search is a Google term and Blended Search is everyone else’s term. I prefer Universal Search because it’s all inclusive and has nothing to do with searching for a blender to buy or finding a blended drink recipe.

Sherman goes into the history of search starting with Search 1.0; Boolean logic and keyword matching. During Search 1.0 content was less structured; no video, limited images and no three tier navigation structures. It was the early 90’s when applications like JAWS for the visually impaired were around, but definitely not mainstream or associated to the W3C. This was the time when InfoSeek sold the keyword “Homes” for $100 dollars and Yahoo! founders; David Filo and Jerry Yang interviewed with Dan Fortune; host of Sound Bytes on KSJS. Note: I was the production assistant for the show and it was amazing to meet the masters behind #1 search engine of it’s time. During Search 1.0 days organizations didn’t need Search Engine Optimization firms or specialists; content wasn’t complex. Just add a few keywords and you were #1.

Then the Search 2.0 era started; Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were searching on Yahoo! during their studies at Stanford and started thinking about citing resources in their papers and drew a logical tie to building a search engine based on document citations. Citation analysis is the logic behind Google and the birth of PageRank and TrustRank. During my college days at San Jose State University I remember meeting people in classes, coffee shops, and bars and writing down the word G-O-O-G-L-E. I felt like a bit of a pioneer during those days, but today everyone knows Google, but people are still learning about blogs.

Chris Sherman made 1 or 2 statements on the above, so assume I did the rest. While he never went into a true definition of Search 3.0, the majority of the webinar was around Blended Search.

So let’s dive in – later this week.

by: Anne Haynes

Yahoo! plans to socialize its platform by allowing users to create, develop and distribute widgets. Yahoo!’s updated platform is set to be released by the end of 2008. It’s nice to see that Yahoo! is stepping up to the social media plate and diving into the social marketing world. It looks like Yahoo! testing out Google powered ads may be a way to fund this platform update.

I think it’s great that Google is helping students win 10 thousand dollars for the best Google Homepage doodle, but come on, why couldn’t this contest be open to everyone? I could use a grant to go back to school and work on my Masters.

I love the Lego Google Homepage!

My cousin is an amazing artist!!! I’m working on her website and explaining to her that Google doesn’t like duplicate content. As she learns about good site practices, she mentions she wants to draw a picture of the Google Police. I’m still trying to get this out of her, but it’s a good idea.

I found this video when cruzing the inbound links to my site and I ran across the SEO Contest 2008 site. The following video was posted on January 17, 2008 on the SEO Contest 2008 site. First, this video is funny and uses adult language. It confirms that the internetworkings within different online social and business services translate to a party!

In the beginning of the video, there is an Ebay, PayPal reference and this one connection in the video speaks volumes.

I was researching Ebay and the ability to create stores, when one of my friends; “Ebay Informant” mentioned his/her dissatisfaction with Ebay and PayPal as a way to move products.

The informant stated, “It started before and after the postal rate increased on May 14, 2007. I noticed the international customers, were not receiving their items on time.”

After the Ebay Informant investigated more, he/she realized discrepancies’ within tracking numbers and the service policies associated with shipping international items through Ebay and the UPS (United Postal Service).

The Ebay Informant stresses the frustration with the ability for buyers to file complaints of Ebay non-receipt because the product is in transit or has been declared as lost.

When the buyer files a complaint to PayPal of “non-receipt” or “item not as described” and the item is $100 or more, PayPal will automatically hold the funds until the dispute is resolved.

If the buyer files a complaint of “non-receipt” or “item not as described” as a seller you are not eligible for seller protection.

PayPal and Ebay have the tracking mechanism to verify shipping status. However they use the tracking information to make decisions on the non-receipt claims.

The problem with this business process is both the buyer and seller are left at the mercy of delayed information and the lack of Ebay and PayPal customer support.

Warning, do not ship international using Ebay and/or PayPal!