Social media conversations and making friends

March 4th, 2010 by Josh

Mitch Joel has written another great post, this one about community building in social media. In particular, he points out how the “build and it and they will come” strategy usually doesn’t work. Social media is often portrayed simplistically as a monolithic source for new business, much like a new advertising venue. Instead, it should [...]

Google ads click-to-call to mobile AdWords ads

March 2nd, 2010 by Josh

Google recently announced that AdWords advertisers could enable click-to-call phone numbers for AdWords ads that are rendered on mobile devices with full browsers. This includes, most notably, iPhones. As shown above, the phone number is displayed in the ad. When the user clicks on the phone number, their phone automatically dials it. This service is [...]

Google makes local SEO more important than ever

February 26th, 2010 by Josh

Now that Google is allowing searchers to specify the location of search results, it is more important than ever to ensure search engines know where your click-and-mortar business is located. We recently wrote about local SEO (part 1, part 2), and now would be a good time to take basic steps to improve the likelihood [...]

Length of sales cycle, your web site, and web analytics

February 25th, 2010 by Josh

The Google Retail Advertising Blog recently posted sales cycle statistics for a variety of consumer products. At the low end, shoppers took an average of 7 days to purchase pet supplies, while they took 16 days for electronics. The data did not include purchases larger than home appliances like cars or homes which presumably take [...]

Microsoft and Yahoo! alliance gets regulatory approval

February 18th, 2010 by Josh

Microsoft and Yahoo! have received regulatory approval for their “search alliance” in which Microsoft will provide search and advertising on Yahoo’s websites. Details are being revealed at http://advertising.microsoft.com/search-alliance/home. Advertisers do not need to take any actions right now, as the integration is not likely to take place before late in 2010, and we assume that [...]

Customers are right, you’re wrong

February 17th, 2010 by Josh

You know your products and services inside and out. This knowledge can be a critical challenge when communicating with customers. They may not be experts, or they have a perspective and terminology that’s different from yours. The good folks over at SPOS recently wrote about this and gave an excellent example: Customer language is often [...]

New team member

February 8th, 2010 by Josh

Web 1 Marketing is pleased to announce that one of our team added one to his team. Late last week, Ian and his wife Jeannine welcomed Kaija to the world. Everyone is doing fine.

Google synonyms and natural language processing

January 20th, 2010 by Josh

Google just blogged about synonyms as they related to searcher intent. They provide several examples of how a concept as simple as a synonym complicate natural language processing. This also brings up some important recommendations for site owners with respect to SEO. Prospective customers type in all kinds of variations on your most obvious keywords [...]

Improve Google Local Listings through local SEO – local store marketing – part 2

December 21st, 2009 by Ian

Recently we blogged about local SEO and local store marketing. There we talked about adding local listings to online service directories. In this installment, we’ll provide some specifics about improving the ranking of your Google local listing and visibility in map results for geographic searches. David Mihm has written an excellent report on local SEO. [...]

Google browser size and visibility tool

December 17th, 2009 by Josh

Google Labs just rolled out a browser size tool to help you see how your website is seen by people with different screen sizes (more literally, browser winder sizes). This tool can tell you if an important elements of you page is showing up “above the fold” or if it remains hidden unless users scroll. [...]