Consumers Sharing Brand Opinions on Social Networks

Performics reports that Twitter may be the place to get your brand mentioned if you want social networkers’ attention, according to MediaPost. Nearly half (48%) of those who saw a brand mentioned on Twitter turned to a search engine to research that brand. Other social networks lagged far behind, with 34% researching. However, the study of [...]

Most Bloggers Discuss Products/Brands

According to Technorati’s 2009 State of the Blogosphere report, 70% of bloggers talk about products or brands on their blogs, eMarketer reports. And obviously some of these mentions would be prompted by free sample products, etc.—a practice popular enough to draw the notice of the FTC, which now requires disclosure on such review products. Interestingly, [...]

Skype Founders Re-Found in Settlement

The drama surrounding Skype as of late played out like a business soap opera. The accusations flew from both sides of the fence with founders and owners going at it tooth and nail. Check out Kara Swisher’s account over at All Things Digital for the blow by blow description. Now it looks like the ‘all clear’ [...]

The.Best.Google.Logo.Evah!

Hey Bert, Hey Ernie!

You’re Facing a Reputation Crisis, Now What?

There’s a growing interest in online reputation management. Over at Wildfire Marketing, I answered some reputation management questions for their Thought Leader Thursday series. Here’s a taster… What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve seen people make when it comes to responding to a reputation management crisis, and how someone salvage the situation if they’ve already made one of these [...]

New Google AdSense Interface Will Tell You Precisely How Much You Suck

You know that $3.40 you make in Google AdSense each month? Well, Google is about to make it a lot easier to see just how badly your blog sucks at using AdSense. A new AdSense interface design will start rolling to users over the coming weeks: For those of you making more than enough AdSense [...]

E-commerce. Up? Down? All Around?

Welcome to this Friday’s version of surveys, research and statistics to ponder. Of course, how and what you ponder always has more to do with the source of the statistics and your mood which makes the numbers kinda funky but ‘Hey!’, if we didn’t have stats what would we do with our days? This latest statistical [...]

5 Tips for Effective Email Copywriting

The quality of email content is one of the core factors in determining whether an email marketing campaign succeeds or fails. But successful email copywriting is an art — rather than a science — making it differ from most other forms of business writing. To start out on the right path, consider these 5 tips [...]

Internet Summit Gives Strong Sophomore Effort

Living in the Research Triangle Park (aka The Triangle) area of North Carolina is a good deal. The weather is great because you get 4 seasons but winter is just a taste of what most of the area’s Northeastern US transplants are accustomed to. There is also a very vibrant technology and new media scene [...]

Google Joins the Dashboard Set

Everywhere in business these days you hear about dashboards. Dashboards for marketing, dashboards for the C-suite and even dashboards for dashboards. If dashboards are so popular it’s no wonder that Google rolled out their dashboard for your Google account. The official Google blog reports In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their [...]

Twitter Rolling Out Retweets, Rolling Over Trends Spam

Remember Twitter’s plans to make “retweeting” an official function? Sure you do, the mock-ups looked like this: Well, Twitter just announced the following: We’ve just activated a feature called retweet on a very small percentage of accounts in order to see how it works in the wild. Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet [...]

All Your eCommerce Are Belong to Google

I think every single one of us could share a frustrating online shopping experience, especially one about trying to find a product you know a retailer offers, but doesn’t show up in their search results. Google wants to make it easier for all of us with their new enterprise offering, Google Commerce Search. To participate, you [...]

How to Achieve Your Goals by Changing the Way You Surf the Web

Everyone has their favorite way of using the internet. Many of us search to find what we want, click in to a specific website, read what’s available and click out. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because it’s efficient. We learn to tune out things we don’t need and go straight for what’s essential. This goal-oriented way [...]

How to Achieve Your Goals by Changing the Way You Surf the Web

Google Falls Short for MySpace

There years ago, Google and MySpace signed a search deal. Google agreed to provide web, vertical and internal search and contextual ad sales for MySpace and other Fox Interactive Media properties and pay them $900M (guaranteed as long as Fox met its traffic requirements) in shared advertising revenue over the lifetime of the deal. But [...]

Reader Poll Winner: SEO Dojo for Best Paid Subscription SEM Community

TopRank has been publishing the BIGLIST of SEM blogs since Jan 2007. We’ve created other BIGLISTs of resources as well including the BIGLIST of 100+ Search Marketing Resources posted in October.  The categories for that list of SEM resources includes books, conferences, newsletters, blogs, forums and many more. We decided it would be interesting [...]

New Twitter Notifications Save Index Finger Blisters

If you’ve ever suffered a blister on your index finger, from constantly clicking the “home” or “refresh” button on Twitter.com, I have good news for you! This: Is coming to your Twitter homepage. According to Twitter: We’re starting a limited test of notifications on twitter.com for when you have new tweets. So if one of the folks you [...]

Add Your Own News Topics to Google News

Google News just added a neat new feature that can help you keep track of news that’s of interest to you, alongside the rest of the day’s regular news item. Clicking the new “Add a Section” link brinks up the following page that allows you to add pre-programmed news modules, or build your own. When you [...]

Google Gives You Fewer Passwords

Data portability is just all the rage these days. Google, Facebook, MySpace, OpenID, et al. have spent years creating services where you can use a single login and password to access email, network or make comments. Now Google’s taking it one step further with something called “hybrid onboarding.” When you receive an email invitation in a [...]

Google Friend Connect Gets Personal

Google Friend Connect can help convert any site into a Google-supported social network. In addition to allowing members of your site to send each other private messages, now Google is bringing its personalization home to your site with Friend Connect. The shared interests that draw people to your site can make it easier for you as [...]

Yahoo Search Experiments with Real Time Offering

It looks like Yahoo isn’t going to be left behind in the real time search race that was kicked off last month as bing and Google both announced deals with Twitter. As we saw last week, Yahoo is partnering with OneRiot for real time results. I’m glad that they are throwing their hat in the [...]

Yahoo Search Experiements with Real Time Offering

It looks like Yahoo isn’t going to be left behind in the real time search race that was kicked off last month as bing and Google both announced deals with Twitter. I’m glad that they are throwing their hat in the ring actually. Why? Well, I actually needed the reminder that Yahoo! is still a [...]

Use a Domain Privacy Service? There’s a Prison Sentence for That!

You know that domain name that you don’t want anyone to know that you own? The one that you’re either testing out some SEO stuff that’s in the "gray hat" area? The one you don’t want your competitors to know that you own? The one you’ve been considering for sending spam emails? Yeah, that one. Well, [...]

Twitter Ahora Habla Español!

Let’s hope this post doesn’t mess too much with Google’s head–I don’t want Marketing Pilgrim marked as a Spanish language site. Anyway, for all of our Spanish speaking readers, we have good news from Twitter! A principios de mes invitamos a algunos voluntarios a traducir Twitter en más idiomas. Gracias a estos entusiastas voluntarios hispanoparlantes, Twitter está [...]

I’m Sorry MSN

Earlier today, we posted news of the MSN.com redesign. Actually, we posted it a little too early. Despite my almost obsessive-compulsive checking of the post publication time and making sure my WordPress settings showed the correct time, the post published one hour before it should have. Unfortunately, I was already tucked-up in bed by 11pm, so didn’t know [...]

Don’t Stick a Fork in All Traditional Media – It Ain’t Done Yet

We could spend all day every day telling you about the latest and greatest flame out in the traditional media world. Every day a newspaper or magazine or some other bastion of the “old world media order” goes away but that gets kind of old. I would even go so far as to say that [...]

The New MSN.com: Less Links, More Social

I tried really hard to figure out how to “fluff-up” this announcement. After all, Microsoft went to the trouble to pre-brief me, but I just can’t say it any better than I can show it. So here goes. MSN is going from this: To this: Yes, one of the most popular destinations on the web–600 million monthly users no [...]

Local Mobile Search: They’ll Be Watching You

Local mobile search is heating up. The powerful combination of GPS location and user input creates a golden opportunity for accurate, local, useful information to break out in a big way. As more and more GPS-enabled smartphones come on the market, more and more search engines and apps want to know just where you are [...]

Turkey Suing Google for $47M in Back Taxes

Dear World: Google is advertising in your countries. Duh. Turkey has recently determined that Google owes them $47M US (71M Turkish lira) in back taxes on advertising sold in Turkey. The government maintains that because Google sells advertising in Turkey and maintains an office and registered subsidiary in the country. Google, on the other hand, points out [...]

Twitter, Lists and Widgets

The title says it all. Twitter has offered its list function and now there are widgets to go with it. Widgets and you; perfect together. This is a good thing for folks looking to add more and more to their blogs. Considering how many blogs look these days it may require ditching something else that [...]

Teen Girls Sue School for Wrongful Discipline Over Risque MySpace Photos

In recent interviews, I’ve talked about the future of online reputation management. In that future, I see a desensitizing towards negative content found online by employers, parents, and schools. In essence, as more and more of us post content online, any embarrassing photo or rude remark will be brushed off, as we learn that we [...]

How to Save Money on Social SEO Consulting

Social Media Marketing is getting a lot of attention in the media on and offline, causing many business marketers to wonder how to adjust budgets and resources to participate. Others that have allocated funds to Social Media and SEO programs without proper implementation, timelines or measurement may question their return on investment. While businesses decide to [...]

Google Lets You Preview 6-Year Old Technology

OK, you’re either going to love this new Google search feature, or think it’s the ugliest thing since, I don’t know, the last ugly thing you hated! Ready? Here we go: Yes, Google is revolutionizing search with the addition of "Page previews" to your advanced search options. Wait! This just in. I’ve been reporting on this type of [...]

Camelot, Atlantis and Now, Argleton

I’ve heard that a company can get so big, it can "put you on the map," but Google is apparently SO massive, it can put whole villages on the map–even ones that don’t exist! The UK’s Telegraph reports on the fictitious town Argleton that’s appearing in Google Maps. The town doesn’t actually exist, but because it’s [...]

Tribune Co. Papers Set to Go Almost AP-less For Trial

Imagine just a few short years ago what a headline like this may draw out from the newspaper industry and newspaper readers alike. The shock of such a claim would be the first reaction followed by the naysayers that would predict the rapid decline and fall of the newspaper company silly enough to make such [...]

Where Can Google Be Beaten?

Ad Age today summarize the state of the search engine marketing industry—and it’s largely good, including the fact that we’ve weathered the recession well so far, we’ve seen tremendous growth over our lifespan and most marketers are convinced of, interested in or doing SEM in some form. Naturally, the report focuses on the elephant in the [...]

SMB’s – Behind the Curve or Right on Time with Social Media

We spend all day talking to each other about the importance of social media. I agree that it is important. We also seem to yell a lot about how social media can cure many marketing ills. I am often included in that kind of talk as well. We act as if social media is right [...]

OpenX Now Angling for Google with Microsoft’s Help

OpenX has long been angling for Google’s online ad dominance. And after a new multi-year deal with Microsoft, announced this morning, they’ll have an even bigger ally in the fight. The partnership has been in trials for over a year, but is now official. Explains TechCrunch: Under the agreement, Pasadena-based OpenX becomes a preferred partner to [...]

Newsday Charges and Columnist Walks

Here’s an interesting twist on the ‘pay for access to conten’t dilemma that faces the newspaper industry these days. Newspapers who do this may actually lose a writer or two! While it’s not likely that staffers at any newspaper are looking to just walk out the door to another job because there really aren’t any [...]

Pubcon Las Vegas 2009: Are You Ready?

Another year in the Search Marketing world, another WebmasterWorld Pubcon in Las Vegas.  Pubcon was one of the first search marketing conferences I attended and where I first met a number of highly talented SEOs in person. TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog has been liveblogging the Pubcon conference since 2005 and includes a mix of content ranging [...]

Don’t Read This, If You’re a Social Media Guru

There’s not much going on in the internet marketing industry this morning. I suspect everyone ate too much candy. While they recover from their belly aches, I’m going to do a little "belly aching" myself. I’ve noticed–as have others–that there’s a growing number of people referring to themselves as social media "gurus," "experts," and "geniuses" (OK, maybe [...]