Microsoft’s adCenter Expands Negative Keyword Limits
Aug. 22, 2010
Now that the Yahoo-Microsoft merger is underway, Microsoft has announced a new wrinkle to its advertising program – an increase in negative keyword limits.
The change enables advertisers to increase by “thousands of negative words…both the campaign and ad group levels,” reports WebProNews.
“If you’re not familiar with negative keywords, advertisers can prevent their ads from appearing in response to certain search queries using negative keywords (specific words or phrases that help prevent ads from being displayed to customers who are unlikely to click),” explains writer Chris Crum.
“Doing so will also keep your keyword-level negatives from overriding your newly expanded lists at the higher levels,” he quotes Microsoft’s Tina Kelleher.
Here is Microsoft’s explanation of its negative keyword limits in adCenter.
“Advertisers need to upload their expanded lists of negative keywords at the campaign or ad group level with the negative keywords migration wizard in the Desktop, then remove keyword-level negatives, the company says,” adds Mr. Crum.
“Unless, of course, you’re perfectly happy with your campaigns as they are now and don’t need the increased capacity for negatives at the higher levels, then there’s no action you need to take at all,” he quotes Ms. Kelleher.
From the Coach’s Corner, for an explanation of the Yahoo-Microsoft merger, see:
Web Publishers: Are You Optimized for Bing?
Security Firm Warns About Historic Malware Levels
Updated Aug. 11, 2010
On a day when Microsoft issues a massive security update, McAfee publicizes its second-quarter date, which shows malware is permeating the Internet on mega scale, according to Website Magazine.
The magazine reports McAfee isolated six million malware cases in Q2 – that’s 10 million for the first half of 2010.
Microsoft’s security update included 14 security bulletins. Eight are designated as “critical” and six are deemed “important.” In all, there were 34 vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Silverlight, Microsoft XML Core Services and Server Message Block.
“The most frequently used malware included threats on portable storage devices, fake anti-virus software, software specifically targeted at social media users, AutoRun malware and password-stealing Trojans,” writes Linc Wonham, Website Magazine’s associate editor. “McAfee reported that approximately 55,000 new pieces of malware appear every day around the world.”
He reports spam is down after peaking at almost 175 billion messages per day in Q3 2009.
“The most popular forms of spam in the U.S. were delivery status notifications or non-delivery receipt spam, which was also the case in Great Britain, China, Australia, Italy, Spain, Germany and Brazil. Argentina had the world’s highest number of different spam topics with 16, according to McAfee’s report,” he explains.
So, if Microsoft hasn’t updated your computers, get busy. For solutions on malware, see: What You Must Do to Combat the Malware Epidemic.
From the Coach’s Corner, if you want more tech-security information, search for the name, Dr. Stan Stahl, on this site. You’ll find voluminous, useful information.
Internet Marketing Trend: Q2 Sales Increase 9 Percent
Aug. 10, 2010
Internet retail sales increased to an aggregate $32.9 billion in the U.S. during the second quarter of 2010, according to research firm comScore. That’s a 9 percent increase over 2009’s total, and represents the third straight quarter of increases after the previous weak sales during the downturn.
“The second quarter’s continuation of the first quarter’s strong retail e-commerce growth rates is encouraging,” says Gian Fulgoni, the comScore chair. “We remain cautiously optimistic heading into the second half of the year, but we will be keeping a close eye on unemployment rates, which along with potential uncertainty in the stock market could limit growth in e-commerce spending in the near term.”
Sales are up 17 percent among households with an income of $100,000 or higher.
Consumers spending their money in consumer electronics (excluding PC peripherals); computer software (excluding PC games); computers/peripherals/PDAs; and books and magazines.
It’s also worth noting that retailers with multi-channels gained the most market share vis-à-vis companies with merely an online presence.
| Retail E-Commerce (Non-Travel) Growth Rates Excludes Auctions, Autos and Large Corporate Purchases Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore, Inc. |
||
| Quarter | E-Commerce Spending ($ Millions) | Y/Y Percent Change |
| Q1 2007 | $27,970 | 17% |
| Q2 2007 | $27,176 | 23% |
| Q3 2007 | $28,441 | 23% |
| Q4 2007 | $39,132 | 19% |
| Q1 2008 | $31,178 | 11% |
| Q2 2008 | $30,581 | 13% |
| Q3 2008 | $30,274 | 6% |
| Q4 2008 | $38,071 | -3% |
| Q1 2009 | $31,031 | 0% |
| Q2 2009 | $30,169 | -1% |
| Q3 2009 | $29,552 | -2% |
| Q4 2009 | $39,045 | 3% |
| Q1 2010 | $33,984 | 10% |
| Q2 2010 | $32,942 | 9% |
That’s certainly encouraging news. But it also underscores how the affluent are faring better in the recovery, so far.
From the Coach’s Corner, if you’re like other businesses and want to sell more, here are 5 Strategies to Sell More from Your Web Site.
Web Publishers: Are You Optimized for Bing?
Updated Aug. 17, 2010
The time has come to optimize your Web site for Bing. That’s because the long-awaited deal between Yahoo and Bing is in effect. Microsoft Advertising’s Tina Kelleher explains in a blog post today the change is underway. Initially, the change will take place on English-language Yahoo searches.
Why is optimizing for Bing important? In terms of market share, Yahoo and Bing are expected to combine for 30 percent – hence, the need to act.
Bing is powering the search for Yahoo. However, each will still have separate identities. You might recall that Yahoo and Bing signed the advertising deal for a 10-year duration.
This column originally quoted a Website Magazine report about the change. Website Magazine also suggests you check out Bing’s new webmaster tools.
The magazine reported an alert by Yaho0 to optimize for Bing “…if organic search results are an important source of referrals to your website.”
You know what? Success in organic search listings is indeed noticed by most Internet users.
“It also indicated that Yahoo! hopes to migrate its paid-search ads to Microsoft’s adCenter by the beginning of the 2010 holiday season, but that it may wait until the start of 2011 to take that action,” states Website Magazine.
In my experience, Bing has kept its promise to improve its method of organizing searches compared to MSN. The navigation has proved to be easy. While it’s similar to Google in many ways, personally, I’ve found it to be a great search experience.
Moreover, it’s fairly easy to optimize your site for good placement on Bing.
Here’s a checklist:
- Make sure you add your site to Bing. It has a dashboard for analysis of your summary, profile, links, keywords, site map and crawl issues. Don’t forget to add your site to Bing’s Local Listing Center.
- Like Google, Bing more easily recognizes domain age. Both recognize title tags and keywords for your content.
- Unlike Google, Bing is not as concerned about the quality of back links as it is anchor text. But my sense is great content attracts great links. (In my SEO work for clients, to save time from having to review other linking sites, I simply don’t allow back links with a Google Page Rank of less than 3. Even then, I do check to see the site’s focus before allowing it to back link to my client.)
- Be extra careful with your content, especially the headlines and blog summaries. Bing has a great feature, a document preview, which is a text box that shows up next to your mentions on Bing – the verbiage is copied from your site.
- As both Bing and Google pay homage to flash with stronger prominence, be sure to consider inserting such videos.
- Bing is far more amenable to publishing quality press releases than Google, which accelerate your success. Here’s a sample from Bing News of how some of my press releases appear. They’re in place for four weeks.
- Bing is very cognizant of social media. The more relevant social media you have, the better. Twitter and Facebook are good. Despite what you’ve read about sharing blogs on Digg.com, Digg is still a player. LinkedIn is terrific.
On a side note: If you want to reach professionals — LinkedIn is outstanding — if you participate on a frequent basis. LinkedIn members respond well to good content, especially if you introduce your content with a question. Actually, LinkedIn provides this Web site with more visitors than Google.
To summarize, it’s important not to dismiss the potential of Bing. Bing is attractive and is doing a good job. You’ll find it to be a fairly simple process to optimize for Bing.
From the Coach’s Corner, if you’re launching a new Web site, try to use HTML. That will help you make faster progress than you will with a blog format, such as WordPress. Google gives more preference to HTML, especially if you want to be inserted in Google News. WordPress simply will take you a little longer for success.
Here are some other basic pointers: Startup Toolkit – How to Make a Hit on the Internet.
Is It Time to Educate CEOs about Threats from Cybercrime?
July 13, 2010
Many senior executives still don’t get it about cybercrime. There is plenty of evidence that cybercriminal activity is flourishing. But a USA Today report indicates research shows many CEOs remain unaware about the dangers to their firms when it comes to Internet security.
Eighty-one percent of information-technology professionals believe that their companies’ senior managers still do not comprehend the need to take proactive steps to ward off security threats.
That’s according to a study of nearly 591 of IT pros. It was conducted by the Ponemon Institute for NetWitness. Not only did it involve opinions about CEOs, the same fears were attributed to a lack of understanding by government agencies.
In addition to the 81 percent concerning senior executives, the study reports other red flags:
- 83 percent indicated their organization has been a recent target of advanced threats
- 41 percent said they were frequently attacked
So, it’s time to check with go-to security expert Dr. Stan Stahl. Is it really possible that senior executives don’t fully comprehend IT security dangers?
“Our experience confirms the validity of these statistics,” believes Dr. Stahl. “The cybercrime problem is only going to get worse as more and more small and medium size businesses fall victim to online bank fraud.”
Commenting in his blog, Dr. Stahl is a widely known pioneer and consultant in security and the prevention of identity theft. He is the expert on Federal Trade Commission rules under the Gramm Leach Bliley Act governing non-public personal information by financial institutions. He is also president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Information Systems Security Association, a nonprofit, international organization of information-security professionals and practitioners.
“The biggest challenge we see is helping the men and women who have to dedicate resources (people or money) understand (1) why they need to improve the security of their information systems, (2) the basic steps involved in improving systems security, and (3) the ancillary competitive benefits they can get from improved information systems security management,” he writes.
Indeed, the study also indicates 44 percent of attacks result in the theft of confidential information, and 45 percent of the cyber strikes result specifically in the “theft of intellectual property.”
“It’s to meet this challenge that we in the Los Angeles Chapter of the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA-LA) have embarked on an aggressive Community Outreach Program”, writes Dr Stahl. “Our objective is nothing less than to raise information security awareness.”
Of course, the association has local chapters in multiple cities; see www.issa.org.
Yes, it’s disappointing to know that senior executives are still in the dark. But IT pros can solve this problem. Here’s more: How CIOs Can Get More Respect in the C-Suite.
From the Coach’s Corner, this site’s Tech section contains many Biz Coach columns on cybersecurity with solutions from Dr. Stahl. (Note: I’m very familiar with Dr. Stahl’s expertise as we’re both members of Consultants West, www.consultantswest.com.)
For more on Dr. Stahl: http://www.citadel-information.com/index.php ; and blog.citadel-information.com.
Resources links: Ponemon Institute, www.ponemon.org; and NetWitness, www.netwitness.com.
Tech Planning: What If There’s A Double Dip?
Pick any region. Most respected economists and other experts believe economic growth will be tepid, at best. There are continuing concerns about the world’s economy, and it’s important to ask a key question: Are you ready for a possible double-dip recession?
Certainly, many global economic trends are eye-opening. Here in the U.S., job-growth and the consumers’ inability to buy are major concerns.
Moreover, public policy at all levels – federal, state and county, and city government – is hurting the nation.
At the federal level, stimulus spending that totals more than $1 trillion has been inefficient. Relatively few jobs are being created and there are constant calls for more spending. Policies are detrimental. The healthcare reforms are anything but productive. The legislation created 19 new taxes, it lacks cost-controls, and insurance premiums are mounting.
For years, state and local governments have been fiscally dysfunctional, too. They are still increasing taxes and slashing services.
Businesses are disappointed. Many lack an incentive to invest in human resources, marketing and technology.
The aggregate impact: A further deterioration of Americans’ financial and political freedoms.
So, it was not a surprise that technology-research firm Gartner recommends in a study that chief information officers should get ready for another downturn. That requires planning.
Authors of the study, Plan for a Second Recession, Now, wrote: “We urge these CIOs to leverage their recent experiences by preparing their enterprises should another economic downturn occur within the next 12 to 18 months.”
Gartner believes it’s important that CIOs communicate closely with senior company executives on priorities. Which IT projects for the next 18 months could be postponed or even disregarded?
My sense is that very function or project should be comprehensively studied and any spending should be approved. The budget needs to be detailed and every item needs to be justified. That’s called zero-based budgeting.
Just to cover all the bases, your department’s finances need to be constantly reviewed.
If your company is in dire financial straits and is attempting a financial turnaround, it’s also important to understand the perspectives of both the senior executive and the chief financial officer. There must be a daily review in the form of a flash report. A flash report can be designed to monitor indicators on a daily basis and to evaluate your actual performance against the turnaround plan. For more reading, see Step-by-Step Solutions for a Company Turnaround.
If a poor relationships exist between IT and the finance department, which is often the case, it’s important to understand the CFO mindset. You might want to read: Tech Trends: CFO’s the Boss, IT Departments Are Disappearing.
Good luck. Start planning and strap in the proverbial seatbelt if the roller-coaster ride proves to be harrowing.
From the Coach’s Corner, if you’re thinking about getting into business for yourself, I’d recommend reading: Eight Strategies to Consider Before Starting A Tech Business.
Not convinced about economic conditions? Here’s an eye-opening headline: Gartner Trims Worldwide IT Spending Growth Forecast to 3.9 Percent.
5 Tips If Your Web Site’s Traffic Slows in Summer Months
Traffic on the Internet slows in the summertime, according to Peter A. Prestipino at Website Magazine. So much so, his article refers to the slowdown as the “Web summer doldrums.” Frankly, I’ve never noticed. But I respect his insights.
From his 10 years experience, he offers five tips for helping your summer Web traffic; they include:
Create 30, 60 and 90-day plans – Mr. Prestipino suggests developing and implementing strategies in 30-day increments.
“The 30-60-90 strategy is ideal as an outline of what you will accomplish, what you want to accomplish, and, finally, what you wish you could accomplish,” he writes.
“In 30 days you will want to have created a media center on your site; in 60 days you will want to have had 10 bloggers written about your website or its products and services, and in 90 days you will want to get coverage from at least one major media news source,” he adds. “There are clearly a lot of steps involved to get there but writing down your plan will get you thinking about how to achieve them. When you plan, you plan to succeed.”
Complete Big Projects – Mr. Prestipino asserts that in the process, you will uncover a challenge that needs to be solved.
“…big projects might be a Website redesign, link building campaigns, conversion testing, etc,” he writes. “When it comes to selecting which big project you want to complete, you’ll need to weigh the potential return against the time commitment and legwork necessary to get the project done.”
He points out the most-complex projects usually don’t provide short-term benefits.
“Decide what would most benefit your business (creating social media campaigns, email marketing campaigns, etc.) and stick with it,” he explains. “When you know what you need and resolve to complete the task, it will make a difference to the bottom line in the near and long term.”
Network until Your Fingers Hurt – He says a good summer-investment of time is working on your connections and contacts.
“If you’ve established a Facebook Fan page, recruit new members,” he writes. “If you’re a LinkedIn user, find colleagues, customers and others in your industry to connect with.”
He believes social media endeavors are vital and it’s important to be uncompromising in your efforts.
“The best place to look might just be in your own customer list and even your own inbox,” he suggests. “Start there and shore up your friend and fan base this summer for long-term Web success.”
Stockpile Information and Ideas – He says even if you want to take easy in the summer, at least start accumulating ideas and information.
“It will undoubtedly be a challenge not to act on the information you encounter on the Web as much of it will probably motivate you to act on the suggestions provided, but doing so will ultimately give you a library of ideas you can leverage in the future,” Mr. Prestipino writes.
He says he always generates about 30 article ideas and another 10 to create revenue for his magazine.
“Stockpiling information and ideas will serve you well when you hit those creative blocks or when you finish one project and want to start another,” he explains. “When you are prepared, your chances of success are that much higher.”
Learn One New Thing – Mr. Prestipino suggests learning at least one new concept.
“Learning is a process,” he philosophizes. “The more you know, the more prepared you are to achieve success — Web success.”
He also invites readers to share their ideas at www.websitemagazine.com.
He deserves a big thumbs-up for his excellent counsel. Actually, his Web site is a must-read if you want timely information.
From the Coach’s Corner, if you haven’t focused on your social-media potential but want to start, why not now?
A personal case study:
Since I learned that search engines incorporate social media to assess Web-site relevance, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Digg, etc., have provided a nice boost to this site’s online presence almost immediately after I implemented the social-media practices, especially on Google and Bing.
My Web site gets as many referrals from social media as it does from Google. It helps with repeat visitors. I don’t bother anyone by tweeting about having a cup of coffee or other trivia…it’s usually a tweet to convey useful information. Further, as soon as I post a headline from my business-coaching Web site, the number of visitors to my site skyrockets. (I also take advantage of the LinkedIn feature to synch my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts. Tweets are automatically posted on my LinkedIn account.) Frequently, they are re-tweeted.
Press releases with pictures have also been beneficial.
Also, I’ve posted articles on a technology-client’s site, and promoted them on Facebook which is synched with Twitter. The client has enjoyed a 50 percent increase in visitors and climbing.
To connect with me:
www.linkedin.com/in/terrycorbell
Trend: Google Down Slightly While Yahoo, Microsoft Up
May 11, 2010
In U.S. Internet searches, Google sites dropped a bit while the Yahoo and Microsoft Web sites experienced an increase in visitors in April 2010, according to the latest comScore Core Search Report. The research company also reports there were 15.5 billion searches last month.
Google’s market share was 64.4 percent – down .7 percent from 65.1 percent.
Yahoo’s sites jumped in visitors by .8 percent – from 16.9 to 17.7 percent.
Microsoft increased by .1 percent from 11.7 to 11.8 percent.
“Both Yahoo! Sites and Microsoft Sites have experienced gains due in part to the introduction of new site navigation experiences that tie content and related search results together within several channels,” according to the comscore press release.
“These features provide search results to users as they navigate through topical content and meet comScore’s established criteria for counting search queries,” added comScore. “Ask Network captured 3.7 percent of the search market, followed by AOL LLC with 2.4 percent.”
The ranking in terms of searches:
- Google – 10 billion
- Yahoo – 2.8 billion
- Microsoft – 1.8 billion
- Ask Network – 574 million
- AOL LLC – 371 million
The comScore disclaimer: “Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.”
Here’s the link for the comScore press release.
From the Coach’s Corner, here’s a helpful article on Six Ways to Test Your E-commerce Site.
Facebook Clips Google – Is Google’s Bloom Falling off the Rose?
March 16, 2010
The Internet world has been buzzing after Facebook enjoyed more visits than Google in the U.S. during the second week of March, according to the research company, Hitwise. This is ostensibly the third time Facebook has beaten Google as the No. 1 engaged Web site since Christmas Eve, 2009.
Facebook is credited by Hitwise with 7.07 market share percent compared to Google’s 7.03 percent.
A competing research firm, comScore, reports Facebook’s share was helped by its 10 percent growth rate – from 395 million visits January to 436 million visits in February.
The Internet’s intrigue is exciting. Three years ago MySpace was the No. 1 Web when Google took over. And for most of 2009, Twitter seemed to be the recipient of most of the online buzz.
Now, it’s Facebook because it makes it easy to share content and information, and it’s becoming a first destination site for users.
Most importantly is the implication that Facebook will ultimately help Bing in its competition with Google. Bing handles search for Facebook. This is another indication of Microsoft’s brilliance in forming strategic alliances.
Meantime, Hitwise differs by about 25 percent from other research companies, comScore and Nielsen, in estimating Bing’s performance. Hitwise only pegged Bing at 9.7 percent market share in search.
For example, in February, Bing continued to accelerate its growth according to Nielsen. The Nielsen press release states Bing’s market share is 12.5 percent. That’s a 15 percent jump since January. Nielsen also reports Google lost market share for two consecutive months – from 67.3 percent in December to 66.3 percent in January to 65.2 percent in February.
Nielsen also says Yahoo has dropped to 14.1 percent. This might represent a red flag for Bing if it is only taking market share from Yahoo. Bing needs to demonstrate success against Google. That’s because Bing and Yahoo will soon join forces in their 10-year deal with Bing being responsible for search and Yahoo handling the advertising.
So, it’s hard to say at this point whether the bloom is falling off Google’s rose. Other than death and taxes, nothing is ever certain but change.
From the Coach’s Corner, here’s the latest Nielsen press release:
Bing Hits All-Time High Market Share: Nielsen.
Achieving Strong Results on Google Now Easier with Social Networking
As a business-coaching columnist, I enjoy doing a lot of reading. My email is filled with tons of material every day on topics ranging from finance to technology. Sometimes, it’s hard to stay abreast of it, but it’s enjoyable.
One of my favorites to at least scan is Website Magazine. They are up-to-date on their information.
An article on how to succeed on Google by Dante Monteverde, known as the SEO Corner Columnist, is really informative and reassuring to Web site entrepreneurs.
Most Web site owners have had to work hard at mastering Google in organic search or search engine optimization (SEO). That’s true for me. Compared to Bing, Google has been quirky to say the least.
But with social media optimization (SMO), it’s getting a lot easier on Google. It’s easier on Bing and the others because of SMO.
If you’re a little late to the party, this means Google’s blended search process includes social content with the organic elements, such as images, news and videos. That’s a much easier process for most of us.
Here’s the link to the article: SEO for Google Social Search.
From the Coach’s Corner, are you or anybody you know thinking about entrepreneurship?
If so, the long road to becoming a good entrepreneur is a difficult undertaking.
To see if you’re cut out to be your own boss, take an aptitude-entrepreneurial test.
P.S. If you’re a regular use of this Web site, you might have noticed this column is much shorter than usual…I’m taking a partial day off. We’ll chat with you soon.