How To Group Your Keywords; Plus: Q&A With WordStream’s Larry Kim
Organizing your paid search keywords into the right ad groups can be a difficult task for even the best search engine marketers. Many times, a keyword may seem to naturally fall into multiple ad groups. The engines tell us the best practice is to not have the same keyword in different groups, because [...]
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Small & Nimble Trumps Big & Slow In SEO
In my experience, the best search engine optimization (seo) in the world comes from small shops and freelance consultants. That statement (and the following article) is only my opinion, of course, but it’s an opinion based on about 14 years working in this industry.
Let’s get real: any agency (large or small) is primarily in business [...]
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Be Warned, Twitter Lists Will End in Tears!
It will all end in tears.
OK, maybe the A-List won’t be crying, but if you thought the “they’re not following me” snub was bad, Twitter’s about to ramp up your angst with the pending launch of Lists.
Twitter Lists will allow you to create your own themed list of Twitter users. Want to create a list of the best search engine marketers? Go ahead, create that bad boy. But note this:
Lists are public by default (but can be made private) and the lists you’ve created are linked from your profile. Other Twitter users can then subscribe to your lists. This means lists have the potential to be an important new discovery mechanism for great tweets and accounts.
I bolded that first part, because it is important. Twitter wants you to make your lists public. Sure it has its own list of uber-users that all noobs get presented with, but Twitter would like your help discovering niches–and sharing those niche lists with the twitterverse.
OK, that sounds all well and good. Add your family to a list. Create one for your favorite marketing bloggers…ahem! But, the lists you make public could have you facing some tough questions from those that are snubbed.
For example, what if you created a list of top technology CEOs, but didn’t include your boss. What if your lists of affiliate marketing gurus left off your friend because, well let’s face it, she’s not that good at affiliate marketing. Keep your list public at your own risk!
Now let’s look at this from a snubbee’s perspective. Twitter is already full of cliques, Lists just formalizes them and confirms your worst fears–you are indeed a nobody. You’ll lie awake at night wondering why you weren’t included on such-and-such’s list. Doesn’t he like me? Does he think I’m not good enough? And don’t tell me it won’t happen–either you’re in denial, or you’re just not admitting it publicly.
Twitter Lists provide a lot of great uses–I can’t wait to get my hands on them. But this Pilgrim has been around the block and he’s seen the cold chills some folks get when shunned from the infamous “A-List.” Now they’ll get shunned from the B, C, seo, SEM, PPC, SMM-Lists too!
Good times! 
Jim Lanzone: Vengeance in Video?
In January 2008, Ask CEO Jim Lanzone stepped down. He moved to Redpoint Ventures, a VC firm, to be their entrepreneur-in-residence. But his latest project brings him back to search: Clicker, an online TV video search engine. Kinda.
Lanzone is CEO of the video service, which launched yesterday at TechCrunch50 into private beta. Clicker aims to be a TV guide for online video—”the most comprehensive way to find the video content you’re looking for on the web.”
What makes Clicker different from the myriad other video search engines out there? TechCrunch reports:
[Clicker] creates a structured database of programming, organizing shows by things like network, genre, and show name. This type of data not only allows for better search results, but it allows you to browse content without having to do text-based searches, which you probably won’t be doing when television and future web-enabled tablets start to serve up this content. Clicker already has a deal with Boxee.
The goal is really to be the best search engine for video content. Clicker will point you in the direction of whatever you are looking for (and will do embeds if they’re available), but won’t serve up the videos themselves. They will also delve into surfacing content not explicitly produced for television, but is still high quality web video content. But they don’t want to be YouTube, which is cluttered with user-generated content. Clicker is going for a different market.
Clicker will also allow users to edit and submit information about shows wiki-style.
My question: what’s with all those vowels?! Are you sure you didn’t mean “clickr”? Way to shoot yourselves in the foot, guys. 
Naturally, the first real question is what’s their business model. And the answer is typical of search engines: advertising, both search and display. However, they also plan to offer premium accounts, “which the company envisions might be used for storing your favorite videos online, kind of like a DVR of sorts.”
We’re obviously still learning new things about how to do online video all the time, as Hulu has shown us. But is there room for another video search engine—and if so, will Clicker be it? What do you think?
Best Search Engine In Canada? Hitwise Says It’s Bing
In a detailed report about the Canadian search landscape, Hitwise says Bing is the best search engine at producing “successful searches,” beating out both Google and Yahoo, as well as their Canada-specific search engines.
The chart above, provided specifically to Search Engine Land, shows that Bing is the 6th most popular search engine in Canada, but [...]
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Why Microsoft Needs to Spend $100M to Make Us Doubt Google
Are you sure you’re using the best search engine available?
What if I told you that you, your friends, and your family spend almost half their time looking at search results that aren’t relevant?
What if I could show you a brand new search engine that has better results than the one you are currently using?
Would you want to try it?
Those questions are exactly the ones I’d ask consumers if I were in control of the estimated $80 million to $100 million Microsoft plans to spend on marketing its, yet to be launched, search engine.
We’re just days away from Microsoft releasing “Kumo” (the current working name) into the wild and for once, mounting an honest-to-goodness challenge to Google’s dominance. But, Microsoft can’t possibly expect something flashy and new to convince Google users to make the switch, so it needs to play the only trump card that it has.
Doubt.
Think about it. We’re all pretty much convinced that Google is the best search engine out there, but what if we were told that we’ve become brainwashed into thinking that? What if Microsoft took its research–that suggests 35% of users are unhappy with online search, and 42% refine their search query–and spun that into a campaign that places doubt in the mind of consumers? Are you really using the best search engine available? Don’t you owe it to yourself to make sure?
Cheesy?
To you and I–marketers that can smell a soundbite from 100 yards–but not to the average web user. Think about how many people switched from MySpace to Facebook, simply because they’d heard that it was the place the “cool kids” were heading to. On the web, it’s not so much the wisdom of crowds, but the wisdom of sheep. Everyone else is using Google, so that’s the search engine I’m going to use.
Well, Google’s strength can also be its Achilles heel. Attack the herd mentality. Suggest that we’re not getting the very best search experience. Cause doubt to creep into our minds.
Microsoft is not going to convince anyone to make the switch unless it can convince us that we want to make the switch. It’s mind games, for sure, but if the recent launch of Wolfram Alpha has shown us anything, it’s that searchers are ready to try an alternative to Google. We’re ready to express our individuality and move on to the next big thing.
Microsoft doesn’t need to convince us that it has the best search solution. It merely needs to sow the seed of doubt in our minds as to whether Google really is the best.
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