The Week in Review

6 New Ad Units Win the IAB’s ‘Rising Stars’ Competition

The portrait, slider, billboard, filmstrip, pushdown and sidekick are the six ad formats chosen as winners of its "Rising Stars" competition. "In the coming six months, the formats will undergo further evaluation and may be named IAB standard ad units – a designation that would likely ensure wider adoption among publishers, advertisers, and agencies." (ClickZ)

Search in China

While Baidu remains the biggest kid on the search block in China, it faces growing competition in state-owned Panguso and Goso. Google remains the entity search marketers look to there. (Search Engine Watch)

Top 5 Online Ad Sellers: $20.3 Billion in 2011

Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and AOL will rake in a total of $20.3 billion in net ad revenues in the U.S. in 2011, according to eMarketer, up 20.5 percent from last year’s $16.8 billion. Facebook is expected to leapfrog Microsoft this year to rank third behind Google and Yahoo. (eMarketer)

Bing Races Ahead of Yahoo Globally

Bing has jumped past Yahoo in the worldwide search engine race, according to StatCounter. Globally, Bing grabbed 4.37 percent of the search market in February, placing it ahead of Yahoo’s 3.93 percent. Google maintains a 89.94 percent share of the global search engine market. "Although Google dipped below the 90% mark in February worldwide for the first time since August 2009 it shows little sign of losing its global dominance any time soon," said Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter. (StatCounter)

Utility Linking

If you’ve been using a wide range of linking tactics over a broad spectrum of websites, last week’s Google algorithm tweaks probably didn’t affect you (yet). A blueprint link-building tactic that will help you to insulate yourself against future algorithm changes is "utility linking," or, "using various pre-set phrases plus your keywords, you find sites to add your content to." Here’s how to go about doing this. (Search Engine Land)

Should You ‘Optimize by Conversions’?

Google recently unveiled a new ad targeting feature: "Optimize by Conversions." While it’s nice, there are some things to consider before using the new setting. "Namely, you need to be sure that you have enough data for Google to make a decision; otherwise, Google will optimize your ads for clicks as opposed to conversions." (PPC Hero)

Mobile is Growing Faster Than Google Predicted

Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said that mobile is surging faster than predicted. Among the tidbits Schmidt offered at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual leadership meeting was that there are more than 200 million YouTube mobile playbacks per day, and 78 percent of smart phone users shop on their devices. "At the IAB meeting, Schmidt predicted that digital display advertising could grow to $200 billion a year, up from about $9 billion in the United States and $20 billion worldwide." (ClickZ)

The Value of Being ‘Liked’

In this first part of a four-part series, the value of being "liked" on Facebook. Here’s a look at the spending involved, testing and the importance of rotating ads on Facebook, among other things. (The Globe and Mail)

Facebook’s ‘Like’ Buttons Now Published a Full News Feed Story

Facebook’s "like" buttons now publish "a full news feed story instead of just a one-line Recent Activity story." This is good news for users, third parties and, of course, Facebook. "This increased presence across the internet will spread awareness of Facebook, raise barriers for its competitors, and seed a client base for a potentially monetizable plugin, such as an Open Graph ad unit." (Inside Facebook)

What Has Google’s Algorithm Done?

By now, Google’s latest algorithm tweak is well-known. But what has the actual impact been? SEO consulting company Sistrix had crunched some data and shares its findings. "Those with the biggest loss in their keyword positions include associatedcontent.com, suite101.com, ezinearticles.com, and hubpages.com. Interestingly, for an update that many said was aimed at content farms, Demand Media’s ehow.com doesn’t make the list of biggest losers." (ReadWriteWeb)

Google Wages War on Content Farms

Yep, it’s official: Google is taking on those dastardly content farms. Late last week, the search engine launched “a pretty big algorithmic improvement” to its rankings, which affects nearly 12 percent of its queries. “This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites–sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites–sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.” (CNET, InfoWorld)

Visualizing Ad Test Results is Helpful

Do you want to boost the credibility of your ad testing results? Try charting the cumulative totals (by day) of the metric you’re trying to improve. “Visualizing the cumulative totals allows you to see erratic behavior from your test ads that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.” This is quite easy to do in Excel, but you have to make sure you’re getting the right data first. (Certified Knowledge)

Using Google Ad Extensions: Phone and Local Extensions

Google AdWords has added a bunch of great new features in the last year or so, but when should you use Google Ad Extensions? When should you not use them? How can you use them effectively? This post looks at Phone and Local extensions. (Search Engine Land)

Free Excel Template for PPC Keyword Organization

What comes after keyword research? Organization and expanding on those keywords by segmenting them into root keywords. This post offers a rundown of what this means and looks like, and even offers you a free Excel template to organize your AdWords campaign. (Search Engine People)

The Power of the Conversion Rate

Increasing your conversion rate by a small amount can mean big benefits for your bottom line. Google Website Optimizer is a great alternative for executing A/B landing-page tests. Before you use the tool, make sure to know where to make the impact, set your expectations appropriately, mentally prepare for failure, don’t over-test and know what to test. “Landing page testing is a combination of art, science, discipline, and perseverance. Over time, the payout can be big so be relentless in your pursuit of an improved conversion rate.” (Search Engine Watch)

Google Slaps Overstock and Forbes

Step aside, JCPenney: Google has some new companies to discipline. Overstock.com has disappeared from “all kinds of searches they used to rank highly for.” The company’s transgression was creating a program where they provided discounts to products in exchange for links from .edu sites. Forbes.com recently received a notice from Google about its unnatural links sold through a partner, Conductor, which is now leaving the link-building business. (Search Engine Land)

Which Social Media Marketing Metrics Actually Matter?

Marketers must be searching for what defines success in social media and, maybe more importantly, what doesn’t define success in the arena. “To put it bluntly, if you’re focusing on fans and followers, then you’re almost certainly doing it wrong.” This post includes a chart of metrics divided by different company roles. (Forrester Blogs)

I’m Ranking, but Where’s the Traffic?

Is it possible to rank without getting traffic? Definitely. If you fall under this frustrating umbrella, you’re likely in one of three groups: 1) You’re not really ranking; 2) Your keywords don’t deliver; or 3) Your results don’t get clicked. (SEOmoz)

What to Do if Your PPC Campaign Doesn’t Drive Traffic

Managing a PPC campaign is hard work, which makes it all the worse when you don’t get any traffic as a reward for your sweat. First diagnose the problem: Are your bids high enough? Are your ads compelling? Then come up with a solution: Increase your bids, optimize your ads or consider less restrictive match types, for example. (Search Engine Journal)

Social Media and Converting Clicks into Action

Social media is a means, not an end, as things stand today. That said, social media marketers must learn to introduce clicks-to-action and study conversion science in order to convert engagement into measurable and meaningful activity. (WebProNews)

Word-of-Mouth Marketing and E-mail

Word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing still works, which means if you’re an e-mail marketer, you’re in luck because it’s a very effective channel for WOM. Just make sure that you ask for a referral, offer an incentive as a thanks for an introduction, mention the referral incentive in all marketing channels, track the source of referrals, and keep on mixing up phrases and incentives. (MediaPost)

How Keyword Research and Competitive Search Fuels Display Campaigns

Online display advertising and search marketing are no longer as separated as they once were, "maybe fueled by the diversion of traffic away from search and into social media and/or Google’s rebranding of its Content Network into Display Network." Here are some tips on how to benefit from this. (ClickZ)

20 Tips on Getting Your Content Seen on Facebook

Just putting your content on Facebook won’t do any good. The key is to get a lot of people to see it. In light of Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm, here are 20 tips on how to get your content seen on the social network. Among them are to respond to comments that your fans post on your content, use share links on your blog articles and refrain from using complex language. (HubSpot)

5 Assumptions About Social Search

"Social search makes five assumptions that may or may not turn out to be accurate." Among these are that "liking" something is relevant to all (or at least most) searches, that you trust people who click "like" (or even know them) and that people won’t get creeped out by having their Facebook and Web-surfing worlds collide in such a visible way. (O’Reilly Radar)

Keyword Density

Keyword density isn’t something to get too worked up about, but it’s certainly something to be mindful of. "While I hesitate to give a number, if you have a keyword density that approaches or goes over 10% you should probably give it to a non SEO to make sure it reads like natural language. That’s not to say you should never do it but, if you do, have a damn good reason and make sure it passes the sniff test." Use tools like Scribe SEO to check your keyword density. (Graywolf’s SEO Blog)