SEMi SEOnic

Meetings? Yes sir!

2006-09-20T17:23:00.000-07:00

Hello loyal readers!

Well, I'm back from my "guys only" fly fishing/fantasy football draft weekend in Truckee. I caught a 23" trout but got mauled by a black bear. I'm okay though--just a few wounds and a broken collarbone. True story.

I wanted to talk about the importance of meetings. Some people think that meetings can be a waste of time. Apparently, they've never had a meeting Drew-style. Here are 6 ways to make your meetings effective:

Don't get bogged down by agendas. Frankly, agendas are just suggestions. If the agenda for a meeting is "Version 6.5 of the Quetzalcoatl Project", you are well within your rights--as a stockholder in the company--to talk about why no one is clicking on your ads that say "Click Here Now to be Taller!" Why wouldn't you want to be taller?
Always try to expand on points by talking more. In this day and age, we are suckered into thinking that conciseness and efficiency are the keys to effective communication. Even the best of us! Do you know how long the Gettysburg Address was? Only 4 minutes! Maybe if Lincoln wasn't rushing to get back to watch a Civil War docudrama on the History Channel, people would actually remember what he talked about! My point is that if you talk for 5 minutes about something, no one is going to remember what you talked about; it's a proven fact that 92.4% of men daydream about Lindsay Lohan and/or pastrami sandwiches for the first 5.3 minutes of every meeting (reference: Wikipedia). Therefore, talk it up! If you talk about the same thing for over 45 minutes, everyone will be talking about the meeting afterwards--trust me.
Always show your anger. I learned this one from my friend Sam. If you were to go into a meeting calm and relaxed, you'll get run over by the managers and the analysts. Sam says: "The more angry you are, the more important the meeting." This is true, without a doubt. Trust me on this one. If you walked into a meeting a threw a chair at the wall and then roundhouse-scissor-fly-kicked someone in the arm, people would totally not be bored. Try it.
Be divisive, not decisive. If people get along at work, they're gonna start hanging out all day and talk about manicures. The next thing you know, people will be talking to each other on a regular basis, which just hurts MMPM (money made per minute). The best thing to do is create factions within the company--this creates a sense of competitiveness that can spur your company to victory. Still not convinced? Answer this one: How many wars has Switzerland won? I'll tell you: Not as many as North Korea.
There are no stupid questions, unless it is agreed upon by majority. It's good for people to ask lots of questions, but there comes a point where it's like: "Hey, shut up, I don't care." We have to focus on the X's and the Y's; we don't have time for questions like: "Why has the launch date been pushed back?" or "Why did you increase bids to $60/click for 'free swiss food', even though you are directing the user to an education campaign?" WELL MAYBE THE SWISS WANT TO LEARN.

In summary, meetings should be longer.

Seal of Quality Bah! Walrus is Where It's At

2006-08-10T17:22:00.000-07:00

There is nothing that lends a feeling of credibility to a webpage than prominently displaying a guarantee of it's goodness-- a seal of quality/approval/assurance. That's great for the average advertiser, but in this crazy digital age you need to set yourself apart from the ever increasing crowd. That's why I say add a Walrus of Quality. You get way more pixels with a walrus. Come on those things are tusk-tas-tic. Go big or go home.

Monthly Farm-Expression Enabling Concise Effective Speech

2006-07-31T11:32:00.000-07:00

Loyal readers!

I apologize for the 31 day absence. In an ironic twist of irony, I got a virus on my computer from clicking on a Search Ad entitled: "Free Virus Now!" I could have sworn that it was a joke, but they were delivering exactly what they promised. Anyway, my company limited me to only three websites at work for a 30-day probationary period, so I have not been able to blog at all. El Sientato (Spanish for "I'm sorry.")

So I've decided to stop my daily feature, as one of my coworkers has pointed out that "FEECES" can be read as fee-sees, which sounds exactly like...well, you know. It's actually pronounced feck-is. Muchas Apologicas for La Problematica (Spanish for "many sorrows for any problems I may have caused.")

No other news to report...my fiance and I have started planning for the wedding, which has been pushed back to October 7th, much to her dismay (if you remember, she wanted to get married ASAP, and who can blame her?). All my friends are telling me to get a pre-nup, but I don't think we will, as a sign of our love and commitment to each other. Also as a sign of love and commitment, she just quit her job at Nordstrom's so she can take care of the house, car, and bank account while I'm at work. What a nice girl.

Daily FEECES:

2006-06-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

Still wondering about yesterday's FEECES?

"One gold egg doesn't make a golden goose."

What that means is that if one of your accounts makes a lot of money one day, it doesn't mean that the account itself can be labeled as a consistent moneymaker. For example, let's say you have an account for selling cookie dough (a very profitable business right now, as America's obesity reaches a record high--take advantage of that). If it loses 20 bucks a day for a week, and then makes 200 bucks one day, the account is not all of a sudden some super-reliable, profitable account. It just means some fat kid in Houston decided to buy some cookie dough online.

Here's today's daily FEECES:

"The more chickens you have, the more poop you have to clean up yourself."

Your Daily "Farm Expression Enabling Concise Effective Speech"

2006-06-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hello friends! I know I have not written in a while, but it's been a busy week at work. Actually, it's been a burnt week. My colleague and coworker from a third-world country burnt down our building by trying to put out a microwave fire with a plugged-in toaster. I know it sounds really silly, but if you were there, you would have done the same thing.

I've been told many times: "Hey Drew, you should really think about compiling all your wonderful expressions in a book and selling it at a flea market." Well, I'm not one to toot my own horn, but I will say that if you think about all the stuff that four of the greatest thinkers of our generation--Donald Trump, Socrates, Thomas Edison, and Ghandi--have said, and then you compare it with what I've said, it's really not all that different. Because in the end, all five of us are all about one thing: driving profits.

Therefore, I've decided that I'm gonna give all my loyal blog readers a daily dose of what I call "Farm Expressions Enabling Concise Effective Speech", because I am all about conciseness and getting your point across when it comes to business conversations. These Daily FEECES will help everyone to become a more clear and communicaticable communicator, just like I can be always or sometimes but most of the time I am communication.

Here's today's FEECES: "One gold egg doesn't make a golden goose."

I'll explain what it means tomorrow. Any guesses in the meantime?

Cost Per Love

2006-06-09T13:38:00.000-07:00

I know that some of you haven't heard the news yet, so I'll tell you here: Heather and I got engaged a few weeks ago! Yes, I know what you are thinking: "who would want to get married to that sucker?" Well, I'll tell you: Heather Leigh Ann Easton. I have now used colons in this many straight sentences: 4.

I've been asked to repeat the story of how I proposed to Heather in this blogspace. Some of my friends have said the story warms their heart. So while this may not help you find more leads for nursing degrees, it may "lead" you to love.

If I do say so myself, I'm a pretty creative person (I am pretty adept at writing haikus, for example). Because of this originality, I knew that I had to come up with something really "fresh", or "fly" to impress Heather. Basically, I wanted her to go "WOW, you are so creative, I have to marry you this instant!" I also wanted her heart to flutter (not literally though--her family has a history of angina pectoris).

I know that Heather likes my career because of the fact that she actually refused my advances 4 times until I told her that I was the vice president of a search marketing firm. To be completely honest, she actually refused my advances until she found out exactly how much money I was making (and at that point she actually called my boss to confirm), but the point is that she likes my career. Because of this, I decided to incorporate search marketing into the proposal. I must say, what I did was pretty awesome.

Any normal person searches for their own name on google anywhere between 5 and 30 times a day. I am on the high end of that spectrum because of a recent defamation campaign against me in which some past employees of my company somehow SEO'd the "Drew Iman is the Worst Boss Ever" page to the top of the natural search listings, but that is a story for another time. So anyway, I decided to buy the keyword "Heather Leigh Ann Easton", and make the following ad:

Heather Leigh Ann Easton
Want To Increase Your Love By 50% Now?
Sign-up For Your Free Marriage Proposal Today!
www.drewiman.com

That's a great ad right there! After that, all I had to do was sit back and relax (the only problem being that if she clicked on the link www.drewiman.com, it would actually take her to the "Drew Iman is the Worst Boss Ever" page, which is unfortunate, because I really wanted that url, seeing as how it's my name). I set the bid to $1.00 and waited. And I waited. And waited. After three months, she still hadn't searched for her name. I know this because I actually have remote-monitoring on her all of her Internet Explorer search history, as a way to build trust. Anyway, it was time for me to kick this plan into high gear!

I decided to go all out and bid on any keyword that she might use as a search term in the next few days. I bid on "weather in the sunset district", "LOST forums", "bikinis for 2006", "directions", "google", "yahoo", and "mesothelioma". Now I sat back and waited again. And waited. And waited.

The problem this time was that while I waited, I also racked up a huge bill on adwords. Did you know that "mesothelioma" costs like 50 bucks a click!? WTF!? I just put it on there because her cat has it and I thought it would be funny. In one day, my adwords bill went to 140,000 dollars, which is probably more than I was willing to pay. However, that night, I got a call from Heather. She said that her best friend Becca was searching for "directions on how to talk your best friend out of gold-digging", and she found my ad. Heather said yes, and now we are scheduled to marry in two months! She said she loves me so much that she doesn't even want something silly like a pre-nup to get in the way, so we're going to hurry up and get hitched!

I will say, the major downside is that because of all the clicks, the "Drew Iman is the Worst Boss Ever" page is now the sixth most trafficked site on the web.

Let's hit this one out of the park

2006-05-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

Every nation has it's own language. America has English, Germany has German, Egypt speaks (I think) Pharaonic, and Britain speaks English. Okay, there were two countries there that speak English but you get my point.

I know what you're thinking: what about the United States of Business? Well, in fact, there is a language of the biz people, and I, having worked in "da biz" am pretty well-versed in it. Our newest colleague ShakZPelican is going to write about present-day business language in a future post, but you know me, loyal readers. Always being forward thinking, I am going to write about the future of business language: farms.

Yes, that's right; the future of business speak is farms. Frankly, things make more sense when you make them analogous to situations that might occur out on the farm. For example, what about the phrase "bought the farm"? Or "kicked the bucket"? Or "died"? All these phrases come from farming situations (except the first one--it's pretty likely that all agricural real estate deals are completed within the confines of a business person's office in an urban setting). So here are some agcentric sayings (with explanantions) that you can use to be a better business person in the next fortyear:

Don't come to the henhouse if all you want is milk.
Hey, I'm just the search engine analyst (i.e. a poultry animal)! Don't ask me if you want information about product issues (i.e. cow's milk, that I cannot produce being an avian species and not a mammal).

The grease gets fried with the bacon.
Hey, we had to run some of those bad programs (i.e. grease) because it comes with the territory of having all those other good programs (i.e. delicious bacon--or facon for Cristin, as she is a vegetarian).

Let's not count our baby cows before they are birthed.
Yes it's true, we see through this farm ultrasound that we are supposed to have 6 cows (e.g. profit) born this Friday. But they could all die on impact with the ground (e.g. loss).

Who's gonna date the farmer's daughter on this one?
Everyone knows that farmer's daughter are always really hot, what with their daisy dukes and cutoff flannel shirts exposing their beautiful corn-fed midriffs. What isn't factored in is that they also have the strength of ten men from lifting bails of hay all day AND they get really upset if you accidentally drive through their farm.

That's like trying to find a needle in a oatbarrel.
A subtle update on an oldie. The needle in this case is profit and the oatbarrel is the money that I've spent on the keyword "certificate in ninja skills".

Hey, let's horseride over to the well before someone poisons it with cyanide.
You want to make sure that you always have plenty of fresh water to drink.

A restraining order doesn't apply on farms if you pretend to be an illegal alien.
Just because a girl that you once dated (i.e. a sales rep selling illegal products) gets a court injunction that says you can't come within 100 yards of her (i.e. do business) doesn't mean that you can't actually get within 100 yards as long as you pretend that you do not speak English (i.e. play dumb) or let her see you (i.e. hide in the cornstalks until she falls asleep).

Don't crap in the orchard unless you want to eat poopfruit.
Self-explanatory.

G-mail's spam filter is so strong that it filters out lead in my tap water

2006-05-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

Hi all, my name is Shak, and if this blog is the truth, then what I'm writing is all lies.

If you use G-mail, you know that their spam filter is the best that's ever been created for web-based e-mail. In fact, it even filters out e-mails that could lose Google money! I checked my Spam folder today and found this e-mail:

"Important Legal Notice Regarding Your Google AdWords Account"

"Clicksettlement
to me
May 20 (6 days ago)
Warning: This message may not be from whom it claims to be. Beware of following any links in it or of providing the sender with any personal information.
This court-ordered notice may affect your legal rights. Please read it carefully. If you purchased online advertising from Google between January 1, 2002 and the present, you are a class member in a class-action lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Miller County, Arkansas..."
);

Hmmm...and what the heck is up with that sad winking face at the end of the e-mail? That was seriously in there when I copied and pasted to text.

*Wink (I'm sad).
-Shak

ShakZPelican joins the team!

2006-05-26T09:55:00.001-07:00

Hi loyal readers! Our newest addition to the blog team is ShakZPelican. Frankly, I don't agree with much of what he says, but I think that it will be fun to have a guy around here that we can all make fun of. What the heck kind of user name is that anyway?

Don't Say No To Negatives

2006-05-22T17:52:00.000-07:00

Tired of wasting money on all of those words that don't convert? Well, there's a simple solution - add all of your keywords as negatives!

Google has tried to keep this strategy a secret for years because their profits would take a hit if it were to catch on. But honestly, would you rather see your company or Google lose money? Think about it.

A Level Playing Field is a Fair Playing Field

2006-05-22T17:03:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post: kudos to University of Phoenix's new agency of record, ad.com, for leveling the playing field when it comes to how affiliates generate leads. I always say that we should take away any competitive advantage that a company might have, because then you get what I call "Symmequality". That's a combination of the words symmetry and equality. For example, lead gen companies can no longer bid on U of Phoenix's trademarked terms. This is great news! Those were typically some of the worst-converting words in the industry, and they just brought everyone's numbers down while giving the companies that worked the hardest and smartest an unfair advantage, just because they worked hard and in an intelligent manner. That's "UNsymmetrINequality".

Also, mandating that all of your affiliates do things exactly the same way means that everyone gets the following message: "Hey, no more monkey business." I can say from experience that I've been Phoenix and there are no monkeys there.

Create This, Punk! ("This" meaning "Keywords" and "Punk" meaning "Loyal tagstreet Reader")

2006-05-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

I've created a lot of keywords in my day. In my years of search marketing, I've probably created (no joke) close to over 1,200 keywords! I know that you new readers out there are thinking: "what a beastly exaggerator!", but it's true. In fact, with the advanced programs that are on computers nowadays, you can create a list of over 500 keywords in a matter of hours! And with just a few hints and tips from your ol' SEM buddy (that's me), you can create a list that will work FOR you, not FIVE you:

1. The best keywords are those that you have exclusivity on.
Think about this: if you go to the beach and there are 4 dudes selling fish tacos, each guy is going to get roughly 25% of the sales. Even if one guy, let's call him "Drew", totally makes sweet fish tacos that taste better than anything you've ever had in your life, especially after being let out of prison for stalking your ex-girlfriend on the internet. But let's say one of the fish taco vendors goes into the nearby redwood forest, where no one else is selling food. What percentage of the sales will he get in the forest? Almost 92% (8.4% bear tax)! That means you are best off bidding on keywords that no other competitor has ever though of. Something like "free freeness for free". Who doesn't want that?

2. Misspellings = mis-profits
Some of my colleagues at a competing agency create a list of common misspellings for their keywords and bid on those as well. Look, if someone can't spell "complementary Celezonarex androstenedione supplements" correctly the first time, what makes you think they can fill out their name and address on the next page? I've never seen a misspelling work. Ever. I don't know any other way to put this, but if you make typing mistakes, you're not Penn Foster material (although there is a typing program available--weird).

3. Trademarked terms might as well be "loss-marked"
Take my word on this one--no one searches for trademarked terms on the internet anymore. The 2000's are the Decade of Generic Itemry (reference: Wikipedia). Just look at the way people dress nowadays. When's the last time you saw someone wear a University of Phoenix pantsuit? Not since 1996. I think it went out of style with the LowerMyBills belt buckle. Go generic or go home.

4. Don't use a computer until you are ready to type the words individually into Lycos's AdCenter interface.
Unfortunately, in this day and age we are programmed to use computers to do everything. We use Microsoft Excel instead of calculating numbers by hand. We type things instead of writing. We surf the internet instead of going to adult bookstores. Why not do things the old-fashioned way? People will appreciate if all your keywords are chosen by hand. It will make the user feel as if he or she has been personally selected to go into space, or do whatever it is you're selling. Isn't it true that old-fashioned ice cream sells better than regular? (note: old-fashioned ice cream is a marketing gimmick, but you get my point.)

5. Don't expand on your best keywords unless you want to be an e-cannibal.
Let's say your best keyword is "bad credit loan" (that would never work, I just picked something at random). You wouldn't want to create a keyword that was similar because then you will cannibalize your profits! For example, if your original keyword gets 200 in revenue a month (okay, I know, that's outlandish) and your new keyword takes 10 dollars of that but creates only an extra 50 dollars, your revenue per keyword per month goes down from 200 to 120. How are you going to go public with numbers like that?

6. Bid on words that have heart and grit.
The fact of the matter is that anyone can click on these bohemoth words like "degree programs" or "ringtones". But it's the scrappy words that will get you over the hump. Get those keywords that will work harder than the others--they might not have that obvious connection to what you are selling, but they do the job because they persevere. Words like "instructions on how to unclog a low-flow toilet" for ringtones, or "pictures of sean preston spears federline wearing a wig from the revolutionary war period" for welding programs. Yeah it's true, you can't see the obvious connection, and no, these words are not the heavy lifters; however, one day, they will bring in that revenue that will push you right over your goal, and you'll be glad you picked up some scrappy keywords like "pictures of sean preston spears federline unclogging a low-flow toilet from the revolutionary war period".

Don't Oil The Squeaky Wheel

2006-05-19T16:51:00.000-07:00

My last post has inspired me to write about a topic that is very dear to my heart. The evils of pressure and encouragement.

Someone (who will remain unnamed) was getting on my case about adding a blog - "what?! you haven't added anything? you have to add something by 5pm or else." You can see by the results of my first blog titled "MagpieZCondor's First Blog" that this pressue/encouragement put on by the unnamed blog guru was unsuccessful.

So use this knowledge demonstrated right before your eyes and apply it to the following:
-Do NOT bother your Google or Overture reps. They'll get to your keywords and questions sooner or later. Asking them for an update on some task you put them up to is only going to irritate them and slow them down. They have millions of other things to do. Do not be selfish - just let them do those millions of other things first.
-Do NOT bother engineers. If the product is down and your adds are going to 404 errors, that's okay. The problem will be taken care of eventually. The important thing to remember is that alerting someone to this problem will only slow down the fix.
-Do NOT bother designers. Usability is not as important as you would think.
-Do NOT bother ANYONE. It's probably best just to ignore people altogether.

So put some oil on YOUR squeaky wheel (and only yours), heed this advice, and leave people alone!

And some other good advice - misspell your company name and title in your email signature. Misspellings are the key to everything!

Click on your own ads!

2006-05-19T16:39:00.001-07:00

Maybe it's just my OCD acting up, but I firmly believe in clicking on one's own ads to ensure that the links aren't broken. Especially your bread and butter keywords- the ones that have a CPC of $5 or more. I click on my "bad credit mortgage" ad at least 50 times a day to make sure the landing page is loading correctly. At $8.37 a click it really ads up but knowing that my site is up helps me sleep at night.

MagpieZCondor's First Blog

2006-05-19T16:38:00.000-07:00

Hi.

The Five Biggest SEM Trends of 2006

2006-05-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

Okay everyone, let's go back in time to a wonderful place called 2001, where two imaginary SEM guys are having an IM chat about their budding field of employment:

SearchOptimusPrime7: so hows business
OptimizeThis!: oh its great
SearchOptimusPrime7: wot was that new search engine you were talking about lol
OptimizeThis!: its called google lol
SearchOptimusPrime7: hahahahahahh thats a funny name google rotflmao
OptimizeThis!: yah its sounds like a baby made it up
SearchOptimusPrime7: yah a stupid baby who dosnt kno crap about SEM lol
OptimizeThis!: yah its hella dum brb lol a/s/l
SearchOptimusPrime7: it will never work lolwotatby ocijsppsaomk
OptimizeThis!: dood wat r u doing 4 lunch
SearchOptimusPrime7: Lees

Now, you're probably laughing at these imaginary fools that knew so little about search engine marketing that they were making fun of Google in its early stages. Well, there's a surprise in store: my screen name used to include my favorite Transformer and prime number.

While hindsight is a late night news show on ABC, I present to you my top 5 SEM trends of 2006:

5. Tracking is out, "Grit" and "Heart" are in
I've said it before but it bears repeating: tracking keywords and urls and ex-girlfriend's addresses and the like is a WASTE OF TIME. You think you will actually be able to watch how different keywords change, but all that happens is that you get a restraining order. Go with your gut.

4. Small Sample Size is imperative in 2006
Frankly, there's no time to waste in 2006. Judging things on a small sample size is what babies do all the time with food and other stuff. Put it in your mouth, and if it tastes good, shove as much as you can in there, including cat food. Same goes for SEM. If your account brings in 50 bucks before 9 am, and it usually only brings in like 40, crank those bids up and take advantage of the cash cow that is known as Saturday!

3. The hot new vertical is bovine insemination programs (don't laugh, it's a real industry)
Do you even know how many cows have to be artificially inseminated every day? My guess is like 60,000,000. There are more cows than people in Calfornia (reference: Wikipedia), and if people knew that, they'd totally get on the bandwagon and get a BI degree post haste. Hello? Didn't anybody in this industry go to UC Davis?

2. Lycos
Lycos is the new Google, just trust me on this one.

1. Ad Text should be confusing, not defusing
2006 is the Year of Unbridled Curiosity (reference: Wikipedia). If your ad test is straightforward, no one is ever going to come to your site. Something like "Online Degree Programs: Get your nursing degree online" is only going to get clicks from people who want nursing degrees. That's only like 5 percent of women! Instead, confuse people into thinking they've won something and you'll get volume up the wazoo, literally. Try something like: "Click Here For Info on Who Killed JFK plus a billion dollars! Here's a hint: Lindsay Lohan."

You're welcome.

Tracking = Waste of Time

2006-05-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

Here at work, everyone is getting caught up in this fad known as "tracking". For example, my boss says "tracking is very simple, and it helps us to track information".

Yeah? It's also useless, did you ever think about that? So great, I know how much revenue every keyword brings in. How does that help me? Am I going to all of a sudden change my CPCs (that's Currency Paid Click-Average) based on a keyword's profitability? That would be like a storeowner deciding that he won't sell fries because he doesn't make much money off of them. What about vegetarians? Frankly, I think it's just rude.

More on this later.

SEM - Doin' it right!

2006-05-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

Welcome to Search Marketing The Right Way, or as we call it SMTRW, as it is much easier to say. Over the next few months, years, decades, and possibly even fort-years, we'll be posting some great information, tips, and advice on how to be an awesome search marketer. Keep reading!