We are in the process of making some changes to our blogging software, so apologies in advance for the low volume of posts to come.

I though I would defy the moratorium on posting over here to point you to two very interesting/important posts for affiliates who use AdWords.

Analyzing the Google AdWords Landing Page Algorithm - a must read post from Search Engine Watch

What are you doing to improve the quality of your AdWords landing pages? - a forum thread on Search Engine Watch. It is fairly short now but keep an eye on it for more tips.

ALSO - Mike Sajdak, some of our affiliates, and I will be out at the Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference next Sunday through Thursday. If you are going and want to meet up send me an email.

Posted by James Omdahl at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is for you design/Web 2.0 nerds out there (or are they dorks???).

Yay Hooray is having users post remakes of common corporate logos in the spirit of Web 2.0.

There is some funny stuff in there.

[Thanks to John Battelle's Search Blog for the link]

Posted by James Omdahl at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I gotta start this by saying I like Dave Taylor. He is the guy who taught me how to blog and from blogging InsureMe is really getting some great opportunities - like speaking at the CJU conference in September.

Dave is also a really smart guy. So smart in fact that he has devised a way to pull in a good amount of blog traffic. How is he doing it? By picking a fight.

While he was at the Affiliate Summit in Orlando where he spoke about blogging (and I am sure he promoted his blog) he wrote this blog post - Maybe Affiliate Marketing Isn't Such a Good Idea After All.

One of the more controversial lines:

I am curious how many successful affiliates consider their efforts to be a true business, versus just an opportunity to hawk wares until that market dries up and it's time to move to another?

That's guaranteed to start a fight faster than "yo' momma" jokes, eh?

So what do you think? Do you really think you run a business as an affiliate? Or are you just hawking someone's wares?

Ready....FIGHT!

Posted by James Omdahl at 04:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

There is an interesting article from the Saul Hansel in today's New York Times called "In the Race with Google, It's Consistency Vs. Wow." Worth a read.

It is interesting to think that Google admits that it is easier to make their developers work on more "wow" stuff than filling in gaps in current products. I guess the big challenge is making those gaps into "wows" as well.

I also found this quote to be interesting:

"Yahoo has lost its appetite for experimentation," said Toni Schneider, a former product development executive at Yahoo who is now chief executive of Automattic, a blogging software company. "They used to be a lot more like Google, where someone would come up with a cool idea and run with it."

You think Yahoo! likes that kind of press? I doubt it.

Posted by James Omdahl at 04:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Doest thou think thee knowest what thouest is doing? Yeah?

See if you do here.

Thou keepest on ...

(I have no idea why I am typing this way today)

Posted by James Harvey at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have you ever wanted to search on all of the major search engines at once and have the ability to "tune" your results by increasing and lowering the value of each engine?

Huh...me either.

But people like us are not who HuckaBuck.com had in mind when they created their "search engine tuner." They have created their tricky site for...um...well, people who like to tune searches and stuff. I am sure there are some of those out there, right?

Actually, the site is pretty cool and the presentation is very good. It is fun to play with for a few minutes, but it seems to be a bit too much work when all you are trying to do is get to from the search engine to the search results.

I do have to give them props for including Technorati, Digg, and del.icio.us results. I also have to give them major props for getting a link from Seth Godin's blog.

Luckys...

Posted by James Omdahl at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So it looks like our friends at Google are still doing well. It seems that the second quarter profit has more than doubled.

For some reason I don't think advertisers like us should be waiting for out thank you cards...

[Thanks to the Mike for the link...again.]

Posted by James Omdahl at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alright, so it looks like I might be a few days late on this, but it looks like Yahoo! did a little index update this weekend.

I have not seen any real dramatic changes in the insurance market. Seems like the people in the Search Engine Watch forum generally like the index update. They do point out that there are a lot of old pages that no longer exist showing up in the new index.

Feel free to sort through their commentary here.

I do have to say that it is pretty cool that Google and Yahoo! are giving the "weather reports" these days. It really seems to have taken a bit of the paranoia and alarmism out of the SEO business.

[Super Sweet Bonus Link: Yahoo Home Values - see how much a home is worth by typing in the address!]

Posted by James Omdahl at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My favorite blog topic giver, Mike the Sage, pointed me to some very cool tools (and maybe even some useful ones). They got me all giggly, so I though I would share with you. They are all from Marketleap and they are:

Link Popularity Checker - Compare the links pointed to your URL versus three other URLs. Find out the number of links you and your comparison sites have on the major search engines and find out if you are considered a "contender," "player," or even "900 lb Gorilla."

Search Engine Saturation Checker - Compare the number of pages you have indexed in the major search engines as compared to up to five other URLs.

Keyword Verification Tool - For you SEOers, this tool checks to see if you are on the first three pages for a specific keyword on the major search engines.

Check 'em out, see if you like them and leave a comment for the love of Pete!

Posted by James Omdahl at 05:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is inevitable that if you are in the business of online marketing you will, at some point, find yourself working on a project that takes minimal brain cells and that bores you to death. In those situations, many people will put on some music or background noise so the boredom and tedium does not lead to a complete affiliate breakdown, or CAB, a common affliction for the online performance marketer.

In the interest of reducing the CAB rate, I would like to point you to an interesting article on the Lifehacker blog called Find Great Podcasts. The article will point you in the right direction so you can find enjoyable podcasts that will help you pass the time, keep you entertained, and maybe even teach you something.

I mean c'mon, you can only listen to the Essential REO Speedwagon so many times...

[Thanks to the Search Engine Watch Blog for pointing me to Lifehacker]

Posted by James Omdahl at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Blogger Donna Bogatin started a buzz in the PPC world on July 9th by posting quotes made earlier by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at Stanford University. Donna quotes Eric in saying that the "perfect economic solution" to clickfraud is to "let it happen."

Google fired back today by stating that the quotes were taken out of context and that "The fact is that Google strives to detect every invalid click that passes through its system."

So what do you think, oh AdWords users? Do you feel like Google is doing a good job detecting every invalid click? Do you feel like clickfraud is or isn't a problem?

[Thanks to Search Engine Watch for the scoop]

Posted by James Omdahl at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here is some real basic advice that I think I gave out three times today - so I though I ought to share it with you.

Read the Search Engine Watch forums. It tends to make you smarter.

That's all I got for today :)

Posted by James Omdahl at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am back from a little vacation south of the border and much to my surprise the Google AdWords team has announced that in the coming days they will be increasing minimum bids for some advertisers based on the quality of their landing pages.

While we all knew this was coming, I am happy to see that Google is being proactive in explaining what is going on instead of bamboozling their advertisers like they usually do (Google, you know we love you...don't hurt me for saying that :) ).

So what does this mean for you, fair affiliate? Basically it means that you should really start to focus on the quality of your landing pages. I am talking about all of those pages you point your AdWords campaigns to. If you have an ad for the keyword term "California health insurance," you should have the words "California health insurance" somewhere on your page.

Oh yeah, also make sure you do have text on your page. You know, content and stuff. I would say about 250 - 300 words will work out. You see, when Google looks for "quality content," I have a feeling they are going to want actual content, not just a three word title and a link or quotebox. Google is looking to see that you made a bit of an effort to create a quality site - and that means, among other things, words on the web page.

For our affiliates, you are lucky enough to access some sample insurance content that you can (and should) modify by logging into your InsureMe account and going to "Links" and then "Content". For our CJ affiliates, you can send me an email at jomdahl@insureme.com and I can send you over some content to use.

And if you want to get your own original content (better for SEO purposes) I have two words for you - college kids. College kids can write great copy for a fair price and are usually quite happy with a few bucks for each page - which is usually worth it.

Add a comment if you have questions...and get going on that content if you haven't already.

[Thanks to Mike the Sage for the link]

[Update - Clickz's article and it's discussion about MFA (Made For AdSense) sites]

Posted by James Omdahl at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You are added, officially, to the Merriam-Webster DIctionary. "To Google" or not "To Google" is the, errr, the newly oficiated verbal addition. Literary traditions aside, I think it is cool.

Read about it here.

Keep on.

Posted by James Harvey at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Does Google need an independent group or ombudsman to look over their shoulder on the ranking process? Of course some people think so but I for one do not. As long as they stay within the law, like any other business, they should have the corporate right to run it as they see fit.

Read about the other side of the story here.

Keep on.

Posted by James Harvey at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You know, big companies often remind me of babies screaming "MINE! MINE!". eBay has now banned Google Payments as a valid way to pay for goods purchased. I fully expect eBay to soon receive a good backhand across the cheek from Google.

Read about it here.

Keep on.

Posted by James Harvey at 05:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the issues that threatens our general use of the Internet is the big Telcos and other big pipe providers toying with the notion of a tiered Internet. What this means is that one day your ISP could look at the sites or services (read Vonage, Skype, etc) you want to visit and if they feel they should offer your traffic less bandwidth that someone using their own services (read IP Television, IP Telephony, etc), well that's just too bad for you. Talks on the subject are in full force in D.C. with it being a recent topic of the FCC. They have even brought up the subject of having Google, Yahoo, and other big sites PAY THEM because so many people visit their sites. Ummmm, that's the reason people actually want to have DSL and Cable internet access is it not?

Well, Google said officially they will have NO PROBLEMS filing anti-trust suits against these guys if things heat up. Good for Google.

Read about it here.

Keep on.

Posted by James Harvey at 02:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well .... maybe. It is for me at least. No, this is not about affiliate marketing. Sorry.

I hate going to the dentist. Hate may be just a tad on the soft side. Pure, utter, horror and disgust more accurately describe my feelings about "the chair". One of my good friends is a dentist and I will NOT go near his office either. Why? That stupid drill. Guess what is going to replace it?

The Plasma Needle

Yes, now instead of a drill whirring away in your mouth you can have a flaming hot burst of rabid plasma blasting away the enamel of thy teeth.

Read about it here.

I, for one, am giddy at the news ...

Keep on.

Posted by James Harvey at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)