The Week in Review

Click Rates Are Stabilizing

The recent trend of declining click-through rates appears to be bottoming out, according to MediaMind. From July 2006 to July 2010, the annual average click rates have plateaued at 0.09 percent. The success of online display ads caused the drop in clicks, but have since reached an equilibrium. (eMarketer)

Google Images Display Ads

Google is testing rich-media leaderboard units that will be shown atop Google Image search results. Advertisers are asked to take advantage of the new opportunity. (Inside AdWords)

Mobile Carriers Are Teaming Up to Form Isis

AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile are joining forces to create Isis, a mobile payment network that will enable consumers to make payments at stores with their cell phones. Isis will use near-field communication technology, and is expected to roll out during the next 18 months. (CNET)

Click-Through Rates Rise After Google’s Change to ‘Ads’

Contrary to an earlier study from the Harvard Business School, this study finds that the average click-through rate has increased 11.4 percent, and that the average cost per click has dropped 2.3 percent. (The Search Agents)

SEO and Social Media as Marketing Channels

Despite the rise in popularity of social media, searches are still on the rise, not on the decline. While searching is about being in front of the consumer at the time of consumption, social media is about connections, interaction, discovery and distraction. Social media has yet to become a leading way that consumers find out about new products on the Web, but it may be a big way that consumers find about new content on the Web. (SEOmoz)

Black Friday and Cyber Monday for PPC

The bidding and discounting wars around Black Friday and Cyber Monday are madness, but PPC campaign managers can choose whether or not to participate. Pause all but your most productive keywords, suspend ad testing, sell differently and assume higher conversion rates in your bid calculations. (Search Engine Land)

Combat 2 Problem Areas for Link Building

Building links takes a lot of work and there are two main tactics for overcoming everyday obstacles: 1) calculating your response and conversion rates, and 2) letting someone proofread your work. (Search Engine Journal)

7 Ways to Improve Your Copywriting

Practice makes perfect, so take these tips into consideration right away: 1) be concise and clear, 2) keep it short, 3) stick to three, 4) watch your tone, 5) talk food, sex and danger, 6) break it up, and 7) stay on topic. (Copyblogger)

Facebook E-mail

To no one’s surprise, Facebook unveiled its plans for a messaging system that the company insists is not a “Gmail killer,” but a modern form of communication that overcomes the slowness and formality of traditional e-mail. (CNET, VentureBeat)

Google and Brand Marketing

Google is hoping that Google Goggles will help to offer some insight into how consumers want to interact with a brand. The mobile app for visual searches is already of interest to several big-name brands, including Buick and Delta Air Lines. (NYTimes.com)

5 Signs That Coworking Might Work for You and Your Company

Coworking has its perks, but not for everyone. If you hate networking events but need a network, or if you’re not an expert in everything, coworking might be right for you and your company. If, however, your company needs a lot of privacy or has 10 people or more, coworking might not be for you. (Mashable)

PubCon Wrap-up

PubCon Las Vegas 2010 is over, but here’s a long list of live-blogging posts, all in one spot. (Search Engine Land)

Facebook E-mail

With word that Facebook is set to unveil its e-mail platform today, people are already wondering what effect the move would have on e-mail — and on Facebook. As the social network and time-waster takes a step into the realm of productivity, we’re left to wonder whether Gmail is the target, or whether Facebook has bigger plans in mind. (CNET, MediaPost)

Mobile Internet Statistics

Here’s a helpful roundup of recent stats for the mobile Internet in the UK and U.S. Included is a finding that 54 percent of respondents to a study in the U.S. said they prefer using mobile browsers to shop online over using apps. (Econsultancy)

SEO for Images in 6 Steps

Here are six steps for boosting the ranking of your images in image search results. These relate to image names, image metadata and image size and load times. (ZDNet)

Landing Pages Before Traffic

Getting traffic is an alluring objective, but it won’t mean much if your landing page is lacking. The idea of "above the fold" still gets ignored by many, while the notion of less conversions leading to bigger revenues is something that deserves more consideration. (WebProNews)

Saving Facebook Fan Pages

Facebook recently offered users a way to download their personal profiles, but what about brands and their Fan pages? Companies like Backupify and Buddy Media are here to fill those needs. (AdAge.com)

Google Debating Whether or Not Content Farms Are Spam

Matt Cutts had some interesting things to say at PubCon in Las Vegas. He noted Google’s obvious interest in making the online experience faster for its many users, but he also mentioned that the company is having internal discussions about where content farms should be considered Web spam. (WebProNews)

Coupons Expected to Be Dominant Form of Mobile Advertising by 2015

A study conducted by mobileSQUARED on behalf of Airwide Solutions found that 61 percent of mobile operators expect coupons and vouchers to be the dominant form of mobile advertising by 2015, followed by 58 percent who thought SMS- and MMS-based messaging would be the most widely accepted form of mobile advertising by then. (BusinessWire)

Gmail Trails Yahoo Mail and Hotmail

Though many might expect Gmail to be the most popular Web-based e-mail client in the U.S., new numbers from Compete show a very different reality. Yahoo Mail attracted 44 percent of traffic to Web-based e-mail clients in September, followed by Hotmail with 30 percent, Gmail with 15 percent and Inbox.com with 5 percent. (Compete)

4 Common AdWords Campaign Mistakes

To dramatically lower your AdWords costs, avoid these mistakes: 1) setting an initial CPC that is too low, 2) having too many keywords in a single ad group, 3) using “broad” match, and 4) not having your ads match the keywords. (PPC Hero)

3 Days with RockMelt

The social browser has received a lot of press lately, but how is it? After three days of use, this post lists the good (left sidebar, easy posting/sharing), the bad (slow social badges, no space for extensions) and the meh (preloading search results in the background). (ReadWriteWeb)

How to Use Google Boost

If you’re looking to dive into the location-based advertising game with Google Boost, here’s a step-by-step tutorial. (Mashable)

Stop Shopping-Cart Abandonment

Here is a list of five common causes of shopping-cart abandonment and solutions to combat each of them. For instance, to prevent a customer from leaving early because they have a question or need help, offer good customer support in the form of a free 24/7 chat feature or intuitive support pages. (MailerMailer)

17 Tips for Writing Attention-Grabbing Taglines

All sites need a catchy tagline written with the “four-second philosophy” in mind. Among the tips for coming up with a great tagline are to keep it simple, be honest, be unafraid of going long and going with your gut. (Econsultancy)

3 Key Traits of Conversion-Optimized Design

Appearances are just part of conversion-optimized design. Three fundamental traits of these designs are usability, persuasiveness and prioritization. (Search Engine Land)

The New AdSense Interface

In case you haven’t heard or noticed yet, Google unveiled a new AdSense interface yesterday. (Inside AdSense Blog, Lost Press Marketing)