The Week in Review
The Greatest Internet Landgrab in History
ICANN is revealing who is going after which domain extensions today, opening up the Internet for a new chapter. "By the end of the year, we could begin to see companies branding things very differently." For instance, Canon plans on leaving behind Canon.com so it can use .Canon. There will be conflicts for popular generic top-level domains, however. (CNET News)
Q1 2012 Internet Advertising Revenues: $8.4 Billion
According to the IAB, Internet advertising revenues in the first quarter of 2012 reached a record $8.4 billion. This is a 15 percent year-over-year increase from the $7.3 billion reported in the first quarter of 2011. (IAB)
Marketing on Facebook: Old School Is in Again
According to a new study by Facebook, "If you want to create successful ads for the social network, just do the same thing you would do if you were advertising on TV. Or in magazines. Or on the radio." In other words, what’s worked until now will still work on the social network — the fundamentals remain the same. (Fast Company)
How to Use the 15 Facebook Ad Targeting Options
Facebook’s targeting options enable advertisers to reach exactly who they want. But there’s a danger to this: "Because there are so many options, many advertisers just hunt and peck a few options and they forget about the strategy behind their Facebook advertising campaigns." Here’s a rundown of how to utilize the 15 targeting options for Facebook ads, including location, friends of connections and precise interests. (Social Fresh)
Twitter Runs Its First Official TV Ad
Twitter ran its first official TV ad on Sunday. The somewhat bland TV spot spotlights what Twitter’s hashtag pages can offer marketers when they purchase that keyword for a day (or more). This is another piece in a series of efforts made by Twitter to woo advertisers. (AllThingsD, Adweek)
Five Tips for Writing PPC Ads
Here are five tips for writing winning PPC ads: 1) use clear language; 2) use vivid, emotional language; 3) focus on keywords and, more importantly, the intent behind them; 4) have a clear, compelling offer and call-to-action; 5) don’t overuse abbreviations and truncated phrasings. (Search Engine Watch)
Spokeo to Pay $800,000 in FTC Settlement
Spokeo, the people search engine, will pay $800,000 to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that it marketed detailed profile information for millions of consumers to companies in the HR, background-screening and recruiting industries without protecting consumers as required under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). "According to the FTC, this is the first case to address the sale of Internet and social media data in an employment screening context." (The Next Web)
Bing Integrates Qwiki
Bing has announced a partnership with Qwiki to enhance its search results. "Qwiki — an embeddable, interactive video format — will initially bring in Wikipedia entries, but eventually integrate other content in Bing search results." (MediaPost)
4 Important Things to Know About Facebook Promoted Posts
Before spending money on promoted posts on Facebook, know these four things: 1) community managers have the option to promote posts at different dollar levels for three days; 2) rename posts for easy reference; 3) adjust targeting; and 4) be careful what you click. (Search Engine Watch)
3 Common Facebook Ad Mistakes
Facebook ads are powerful, but many marketers are learning how to make good ones by making bad ones first. Learn from their mistakes and avoid these three gaffes: 1) targeting non-fans, 2) the "Super Bowl ad syndrome" and 3) not testing images. (Convince and Convert Blog)
Facebook News Feed Ads Get Bigger
Last week, Facebook rolled a version of its News Feed that features bigger posts, including photos twice the size they were before the change. This could be a boon for brands, which will now have more real estate when they post on the social network. (ClickZ)
How to Get More Clicks With Low Rankings
“It’s not the higher organic position that gets the highest click share in SERPs. Not always, at least.” Clicks are in the hands of searchers, not Google. Here’s a deconstruction of a SERP, along with tips on how to improve each element of a snippet. The three major components of classic listings are the title, URL and description. Each can be improved with simple tweaks. (SEOmoz)
8 Questions to Ask When Considering a Social Network for Your Company
There’s a vast array of different social networking sites for marketers and businesses to consider, but how do they determine which ones are worth their time and money? Among the eight questions to ask to determine this are: Who are the current users? How does content get exposed to other people on the network? Can you foresee a promising ROI? (HubSpot)
Quality Links and Quality Content
On-page optimization is a process that’s entirely in your hands. Off-page optimization is a bit trickier, since it’s something out of your hands. Consider what constitutes a quality link, the value of PR and alternate routes to quality links (e.g., Pinterest, guest posts). (Search Engine Watch)
Facebook App Center Launches
Facebook’s App Center, the social network’s Web and mobile app marketplace, has officially launched. The App Center, will be personalized for each user, based on app usage, friend information, and ratings and reviews. (Marketing Land, PCWorld)
Apple Could Add Baidu as iPhone Search Engine in China
Apple is planning to add Baidu’s search engine on iPhones in China, according to two people familiar with the matter. The deal could be announced as early as next week. Baidu handles about 80 percent of search queries in China. (Bloomberg)
IPv6 Is Great for Digital Advertising
Advertising networks might benefit from the shift from IPv4 to IPv6. The transition will make it easier to determine precise IP addresses and could make the Internet faster. (Mashable)
Google Makes AdMob Inventory Available via AdWords
Google is making AdMob network inventory available through its AdWords platform. From their AdWords accounts, advertisers will be able to choose to have their display ads show up in mobile apps. This will make it easier for advertisers to give mobile a spin. (ClickZ, GigaOM)
Death to the Cliche Landing Page
Most landing pages aren’t very good. "Usually there’s one of two reasons for a bad landing page. Either (a) the marketer didn’t think about this specific interaction, and the experience is accidentally bad. Or (b) the marketer thought about it — but they thought more about what they wanted (the conversion) rather than what the respondent wanted." The path to redemption is to stop thinking about landing pages and to think instead of experiences. (Search Engine Land)
Foursquare’s Bold Redesign
Foursquare’s new redesign makes the check-in service more appealing to a new class of consumers. The ideal objective is to give users more "actionable, easy-to-understand information to help them make decisions." In other words, Foursquare is now more about helping you decide where to go than just keeping track of where you are. (Wired.com)
The 3 Types of Facebook Marketing Apps That Drive the Most Viral Sharing
Favorites, Quiz and Trivia are the three Facebook marketing application types that drive the most sharing to News Feeds, according to Wildfire. Meanwhile, Coupons, Giveaways and Sweepstakes are the three types of Facebook apps that drive the most entries per campaign. (Jeff Bullas)
How to Construct a Search Engine-Friendly Website
Before worrying about having a search engine-optimized site, focus on having a search engine-friendly site. Here are the components of a search engine-friendly website: a strong URL, effective title and meta tags, no code bloat, proper usage of headings, strong navigation and internal links, and great on-page content. (Search Engine Journal)
Why Mobile Will Dominate the Future of Media and Advertising
We are witnessing the dawn of the smartphone age. However, while consumers spend 10 percent of their media attention on mobile devices, that same medium is only getting 1 percent of total ad spend. Clearly, mobile still have tons of room for growth. The rise of mobile today is characterized by diversity, quality, innovation, experimentation and cultural influence on society. (The Atlantic)
Bing’s Sponsored Results for ‘Keyword’ Reveals Quality Issue
A search for "keyword" on Bing brings up some funky ads. The problem seems to be that marketers and businesses are uploading spreadsheets or cutting and pasting from documents that use "Keyword" as a column heading. This goofy mistake reveals a quality issue at Bing. (WordStream)
Bing Launches Revamped Webmaster Tools
At SMX Advanced, Bing launched a revamped version of its Webmaster Tools, which features a new user interface, summary graphs, an SEO analyzer and SEO reports. There’s also a new Link Explorer, which is a partial replacement of Yahoo Site Explorer. (Search Engine Land)
