It’s been a while since I’ve updated this thing. It’s no surprise to anyone that being out of the game for 2 months can seems like 2 years in the Online Marketing Domain. As fate would have it, I’m going to start switching my focus back to SEM. Tons has changed since the last time I worked on Adwords Editor. It’s going to be a fun journey relearning the basics and immersing myself in the SEM world. I can’t wait to sharpen my SEM strategies and engage in the SEO world. Along the way I hope to reveal new SEM strategies as well as valuable resources to help you become an SEM master.

I’ll mainly be focusing on Google paid search while lightly touching on Yahoo paid search.

First things first, download Google Adwords Editor

If you have infinite amount of free time, check out Google Adwords Learning Center

And if you’re idle and out of a job, it doesn’t hurt if you get the Google Advertisement Professional Certificate (it’s only 50 USD)

Article: Worst SEO Mistakes

Author: Ivan Strouchliak

Posted: December 2008 | SEO Chat

Full article: http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/Worst-SEO-Mistakes/

Summary: Ivan creates an easy checklist of SEO mistakes that will instantly cause low ranking and confusion for spiders.  Keep in mind that SEO is highly dynamic so what is listed below may not work for everyone. 

• Too much Flash and not enough text - leave little for the spiders to read
• Lack of title tags - this part shows up in the search results so be sure to implant target keywords
• Title tag duplication - variety means higher possibility of showing up for multiple keywords
• Messed up Robots.txt files - can cause spiders to misinterpretate or completely ignore your page
• Aggressive Search Engine Optimization Firms - most purchase links and that means black hat methods
• Auto generated content - spiders eventually catch on to hodgepodge text and will deduct you
• Frames - hard for spiders to crawl
• Cloaking - works but only if done correctly
• Hidden Text - bad idea! search engines have far caught on to this ridiculous method
• Keyword Stuffing - just as bad, keyword density is always reviewed by search engines 
• Doorway Pages - made to rank in search results but search engines do not like these pages
• Alt Tag Stuffing - search engines may dock pages if people stuff their keywords in alt tags
• Comment Spam - no need to put a bs comment in hopes of driving traffic to your site. Just leave some real content please
• Forum Spam - same sentiments, real content please
• Meta Tag dependency - some say meta tags are still effective, others say it’s a tool of the past
• Submission to Social Media Sites - one-offs  won’t get you the audience you’re looking for
• Overly Long and Dynamic URLs -  simply and shorten your URLs
• Javascript links - search engines may have a hard time reading Javascript, sometimes it’s better to go old school
• Free for all Link Exchange - you’ll get docked for poor quality link exchanges
• Randomly Changing File Names - you’ll lose the value of the previous links
• No Site Map - site maps help guide spiders
• Link Farms - if you choose this path, be sure to read this article
• Duplicate Content - bad, bad, bad. Easy to spot and will cause your site to be banned. 

As I was setting up one of my sites with an RSS feed, I realized that by directly inserting the RSS code the RSS feed was breaking in Chrome (gasp). Why Google? That’s part of the perks of being in BETA, broken code. Not to worry, there is a solution. By implementing a third party feed source, FeedBurner, your RSS feed will behave as desired. Bonus, Feedburner tracks useful metrics such as clicks and subscribes.  

All you have to do is

1. setup a feedburner account
2. insert blog address in “Burn a feed right this instant. Type your blog or feed address here:”
3. fill out the desired feed title, address, and activate
4. replace the old RSS Feed code with Feedburner’s unique RSS feed code should look something like 

            http://feeds.feedburner.com/Jenny-Huang

Voila. No more broken feeds in Chrome. I highly suggest you test your current RSS Feed links to ensure that it’s performing as desired in all major browsers. Nothing provokes a bounce more than broken links. Industry shows that Chrome’s market share grows by the day. 

Article: Decoding Google Analytics

Author: Google Analytics Team

Posted: September 2008 | Google Analystics Blog

Full article: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2008/09/decoding-google-analytics.html

Summary: Google launched their Google Analytics code on Google Code. This is great news for people who are not quite happy with the cookie cutter reporting. Given that I’m an avid google fan, I can’t wait to see the upgrades Google applies to Google Analytics because you know Google will be watching. 

Article: How to redirect a web page, the smart way

Author: Steven Hargrove

Posted: April 2006 | Steven Hargrove’s Blog

Full article: http://www.stevenhargrove.com/redirect-web-pages/

Summary: Steven not only outlines the importance of having a redirect file but lays out easy to follow steps of how to implement redirect files for all types of code including HTML, IIS, ColdFusion, ASP, PHP, ASP .Net, JSP/JAVA, etc. Steven also explains the value of using a 301 Redirect Using Mod_Rewrite for SEO purposes. Without the 301 Redirect Mod_Rewrite, Google may evalute www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com as two separate entities with two separate page ranks. Hence, the importance of a 301 Redirect Mod_Rewrite.   

Breakdown:

1. Create a file on the root directory of your website, name it “.htaccess”.
2. Open the .htaccess file using notepad or what ever text editor that you prefer.
3. Add this into the .htaccess file, save it and then upload it to your web server:

Article: Giving Google Chrome A Spin This Thing Movies Fast

Author: Don Relsinger

Posted: Septmeber 2008 | Techcrunch

Full article: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/02/giving-google-chrome-a-spin-this-thing-moves-fast/

Summary: Google’s new browser Chrome released yesterday, September 2, 2008. It’s all the big buzz in the online world. Google’s basically designed their browser for a cleaner UI (their minimalist signature look), speed (load time as well as page interaction), and better browser functionalities support (stuff that happens behind the screen). Plus, Chrome is an open source browser. Say bye bye to IE’s 75% market share. Some Analysts even predict Chrome can catch up to Firefox’s market share with in 2 years (article). Personally I’m still waiting for the useful plugins. Speed is important but functionality is even more important to a person like myself. 

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Article: A New Trend for Google

Author: Michael Lowrey

Posted: July 2008 | SEO Chat

Full article: http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-News/A-New-Trend-for-Google/

Summary: article briefly discusses Google’s Trend which is a tool still in Google’s Lab. Google Trend is a tool that allows user to put in phrases or websites and evaluates it’s popularity in comparison to similar phrases and sites. It also segments the results by geographic regions. It’s a great resource of SEO optimization by clearly displaying competitor sites as well as similar keywords.

Article: Text Sells

Author: Terri Wells

Posted: July 2008 | SEO Chat

Full article: http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Website-Marketing-Help/Text-Sells/

Summary: article emphasizes the importance of text and how it brings value to your product. It’s important to understand your audience and be able to present product information in a comprehensive way. One cannot assume that the customer comes equipped with prior knowledge of the product. Aside from informing your customers, having informative text enables search engines to bring up your site if a consumer is searching for your product. As they say, “content is king.”

Article: Six Search Technologies You Should Know About

Author: David Rodnitzky

Posted: July 2008 | DM Confidential

Full article: http://experts.dmconfidential.com/Search/Six-Search-Technologies-You-Should-Know-About/

Summary: interesting article of six search engine technologies that have become the medium for some of the online’s highest visited websites.  Very web2.0. Listed a summary of the six technologies but for a better understanding you should read the article. David Rodnitzky does a great job explaining each search technology.

1. Collaborative Filtering - Collaborative filtering is technology that matches your interests to people similar to you, best expressed in Amazon’s “People who bought this book also bought . . .” Example: Amazon.com
2. Personalization - Personalization uses data a search engine has about you to serve more relevant results in the future. Example: Google Personalization
3. Semantic Search - Semantic search identifies similarities in words and phrases. Example: Yahoo “also try” results
4. Clustering - Clustering, or clustered search, tries to categorize words or phrases into a taxonomy (or groups) of related themes.  Example: Ebay search results
5. Local Search - Local search can be described in two ways - either it’s interactive maps like Google Maps, or it’s geo-targeting based on the IP address or user registration information. Example: Google Local
6. Human-Edited Search Engines - Basically you are able to text a phone number and humans will search online to look up the answer for you. Think of services such as Chacha.