Overdrive Interactive Wants YOU...To Be an Intern!

• Account Services
• Interactive Design
• Social Media Marketing
• Search Engine Marketing
• Online Media Planning and Buying
• Online Marketing Analytics

Labels: Overdrive News, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing

Great Free Media Planning Tools

Labels: Blog Outreach, ClickZ, Online Media, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Strategy

Social Media Expert Harry Gold to Present Social Media Marketing Series at NEDMA 2009 Annual Conference

Labels: Events, Overdrive News, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, Social Media Marketing

Google Announces a New Way to Manage Your Online Identity

To take advantage of this new feature, a user must Google the word “me” and click through from the Google Promotion ad that is currently in position 1 of the sponsored results. This will bring up a simple form including limited contact information, opportunities to link to other social profiles, images from Picasa, and a few generic fields for a user to add a detailed description about him or herself. Google Profiles also allows you to opt-in to have your profile show up in search results. This is not an automatic inclusion, so as to allow people to either essentially have “private” or “public” profiles. While not necessarily optimizing your profile to position 1, Google Profiles tend to show up on the first page of Google’s natural search results. This is a great tractic of natural search engine optimization on your own name.

Google Profiles could become a very powerful reputation management tool. Of course, if someone is typing your name into Google and they see your profile, it will likely only be one of the many links they end up looking at. However, it at least allows you to have a say in what Google returns to searchers; essentially, who Google thinks YOU are. According to Adam Ostrow at Mashable, “This is going to be a welcome addition for lots of people, especially those who aren’t necessarily happy with what links Google has for them on the first page of results.”

Google Profiles opens up a whole new realm in the world of controlling your online identity. Now not only can you control sponsored results, but there's an additional level of control for the natural search results as well. Get started! http://lmgtfy.com/?q=me

Labels: Google, POV, Reputation Management, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Strategy

Overdrive Interactive Unveils Search Marketing Map

Labels: Overdrive News, Paid Search, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Google Sets Out To Kill The Duplicate Content Issue Once and For All

Labels: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Website Development

Google Chrome and its Implications for Online Marketing

Yesterday, Google announced their new web browser, Google Chrome, in a blog post. Chrome is an open source web browser designed to address many of the flaws with other browsers on the market today; notably, FireFox and Internet Explorer.

Google has outlined the reasoning behind their development of Chrome and presented many of its features in a short comic book. Primarily, Chrome has been designed from the ground up with a more streamlined, efficient, and security conscious architecture designed to meet the needs of modern internet users and to present modern Web 2.0 sites as efficiently as possible. As a result, Chrome has a minimalist design that presents only the features that Google thinks users want, is intuitive and easy to use, and loads many pages faster than other browsers do - especially pages that rely heavily on JavaScript, like many Web 2.0 applications.

The current release of Google Chrome is a beta, and still has bugs. It is currently only available for Windows XP and Vista. However, it is certainly making a big splash in the tech industry, and many bloggers and news sites are predicting a return to the "Browser Wars" of the 90's (before Internet Explorer became dominant). Whether Chrome will gain significant market share in the near future is up for debate.

As marketers, an important issue is the impact Google Chrome will have on online advertising. For now, it appears that the answer is very little. While Chrome has made significant advances in user interface and the fundamental back-end design and structure of web browsers, the ultimate user experience is fairly similar to other browsers. Chrome is reported to render pages the same way that Safari does, so preliminarily, it does not appear that web sites will have to change site design to meet the specific needs of a new browser. From a user experience and interaction point of view, Chrome is likely to have a negligible impact.

One of Chrome's features is increased security to help prevent malware and phishing attacks. Additionally, Chrome offers an "Incognito mode" that wipes cookies and search history when tabs opened in this mode are closed. These features may impact long-term cookie based tracking for actions resulting in later sessions from a user's initial interaction with a banner or other advertisement. However, similar features have existed in FireFox and Internet Explorer for some time, and Action undercounts as a result of browser or other security settings is an acknowledged issue with tracking the results of online advertising. Significant impacts are not expected to result from Google's new features, as the heightened security modes that may interfere with most tracking solutions are not enabled by default.

Although there has been speculation about Google using data collected by Chrome to adjust their search results and their ads, this does not appear to be true for the immediate future. Matt Cutts, head of Webspam at Google, posted a rundown of what information Chrome transmits back to Google on his blog.

Chrome contacts Google to search for updates to the software of the browser, and transmits some data back to Google to provide search results and suggestions to the user. However, Chrome does not transmit web history to Google, and does not present additional advertising.

Google Chrome is also an open source project, meaning that all the code for the browser is available to the public and any programmer interested in contributing to the project or simply curious about how the browser is put together. Any code that provides information to Google to help better target advertising would be public, and will likely quickly be discovered in the coming weeks as the online community scrutinizes the new browser.

Ultimately, Chrome is an interesting application that could have a significant impact long-term on the way people browse the internet and the way web browsers are built. However, in the immediate future, it is unlikely to have a significant impact on online marketing or web design.

If you want to try Chrome, you can download the beta at http://www.google.com/chrome/. To learn more about its features, you can read the Google Chrome comic book at http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html or view a short video tour at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlh8gSF_hhE.

Labels: Google, Industry, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), web 2.0

Overdrive Partners with Aquent Healthcare Consulting to Launch SEO Compliant Website

Overdrive is happy to announce the launch of a new website for Aquent Healthcare Consulting. Overdrive worked with Aquent to develop an information architecture that allows the healthcare organization and professionals to easily learn about the large-scale international recruitment services that Aquent Healthcare Consulting provides. The design has a friendly, welcoming feel to help reinforce the fact that Aquent Healthcare Consulting understands the healthcare industry and has the experience to help healthcare organizations address their workforce planning needs. All of the architecture, design, and copy components consider SEO best practices. View the new Aquent Healthcare Consulting website at http://health.aquent.com/.

Labels: Overdrive News, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Website Development

Supplementing Social Media Marketing is Crucial to Success (Part 2.)

For the first part of this series, please see Supplementing Social Media Marketing is Crucial to Success (Part 1.)

In order to maximize return on any social media investment, it is critical to supplement the social campaign with alternative forms of media. Social media marketing campaigns can include a variety of components and platforms, but it is important to remember you can’t simply launch a social marketing campaign and assume your core audience will find you and engage in a conversation.

This sentiment was reiterated in a recent article in the Summer 2008 edition of Search Marketing Standard entitled Marketing on Facebook. In the article, SMS correspondent Grant Crowell interviewed Rodney Rumford- CEO/founder of FaceReviews & Gravitational Media. When asked about common mistakes of marketing on Facebook, Rumford cited a problem in the perception of marketers that “if I build it they will come”. Yes, there is a huge viral component involved with social media marketing; however, marketers still need to take steps to ensure their social campaigns are supplemented with other forms of media in order to fully capitalize on the social marketing opportunity.

Getting back to BMW’s social campaign surrounding a car customizer application, it is clear that supplemental marketing efforts were not a well thought out component of the social campaign, and this detracted from the overall performance of the campaign. BMW clearly fell into the common trap of thinking “we built it- they will come”, but this is not the case.

So what specific supplemental tactics could BMW have utilized to maximize the return on their social campaign? Here are a few ideas.

• PPC Search Ads

After reading about this campaign in the press, I attempted to find the custom application, but I was not successful. For a very modest fee, BMW could have developed a small paid search campaign with terms like “BMW customizer”, “BMW Facebook page”, “BMW MySpace profile” etc… This would be very inexpensive as there would be virtually no advertiser competition on these terms. Ad copy should include calls to action such as “add us to your friends/become our fan” or “check out our new application” to encourage users to interact with the social profile and/or social campaign.

• PPC Content Ads

The same keyword list running in the PPC search campaign should also be launched on the Google Content network. This will generate tons of free impressions, and more importantly, MySpace pages fall under the Google Content network, so text ads running within MySpace could direct users BMW’s MySpace profile (assuming this was one of the networks utilized). Click costs on the content network would likely be even cheaper than search clicks, and the high level of relevance related to seeing ads for BMW’s MySpace page when already in MySpace should help drive comparatively high click through rates for the Content Network.

• Online Media

It also makes sense to invest in online media to drive additional traffic to a social profile, campaign, or application. It is unclear if BMW supplemented their social campaigns with display, but it is certainly a good idea. In addition to standard media buys with various targeting options, it is also worth investigating media buys that would run on the social sites themselves, which would also increase relevance, and therefore would hopefully also increase performance.

Social sites are constantly coming up with new advertising solutions as well. Case in point- Facebook’s new Social Ads which utilize the Facebook News Feed to serve hyper-targeted ads to relevant users. One unique targeting example would be the ability serve ads to users whose friends have recently engaged with the advertiser's Facebook profile.

• RSS Content Distribution

BMW had an opportunity to develop a short press release describing the campaign/custom social application that could be distributed to targeted audiences via RSS. The release should have several anchor text links pointing back to the profile page where the application resides. The anchor text should include copy like “BMW customizer application” or “BMW virtual joyride”. The RSS feed should also include a screen grab or short video of the application to maximize performance in terms of press release reads and the number of times the story is republished on blogs, forums, etc…

The RSS component is very cost-effective as well, and there are multiple benefits to this specific tactic. The RSS feed will drive traffic to the profile page, but in addition, there will now be several links out on the web that will point back to the profile page. The additional links will help gain SEO traction in the natural search results in the search engines, but the links will also help the profile pages show up higher in search results within social sites like MySpace and Facebook.

• Friend/Fan Outreach

Another important tactic involves continuing the conversation with your core audience in the social space. If BMW is hosting their application on Facebook or MySpace, then a blast should be sent out to the fans/friends of the brand. In addition to telling fans and friends about the new customizer application and “virtual joyride”, the content on the profiles should be updated on a regular basis to encourage users to return. Every time an update is made, friends and fans should be notified. Some social sites will automatically inform users when profiles are updated, but this is likely not enough in most cases.

• Blog Outreach

The blogosphere also offers a huge opportunity in relation to supplementing a social media marketing campaign. BMW had an opportunity to launch a blog outreach campaign in conjunction with the social media campaign/customizer application. Putting your ear to the ground to find out what bloggers think of your brand is helpful, but it isn’t enough. Bloggers can significantly influence thought, feeling, and general perception of a brand, particularly in the automotive category in which emotion plays such a large role in the perception of a brand. Cars could be considered more of an extension of an individual’s personality than a preference in transportation.

So if listening is not enough, what should BMW do? Reach out and initiate a conversation with the influential brand ambassadors in the blogosphere. Find out who is talking, select the most active and influential blogs, initiate a conversation, and provide something of value- even if it is just the right to use images of a new model on their site. BMW should also make sure that the conversation includes a quick pitch of the social app that BMW is promoting, as this will create awareness, drive traffic to the application, and will likely result in additional links back to the campaign which provides additional SEO benefits.

The list of supplemental tactics above is by no means all-inclusive. Each campaign has a unique set of goals and challenges. The most effective may to maximize the return on a social campaign is to develop a well planned, multi-faceted, integrated promotional strategy to supplement the efforts of the core social campaign. BMW clearly missed a big opportunity to maximize the return on their social campaign- so be sure not to make the same mistake.

Labels: Blog Outreach, Integration, Paid Search, RSS, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing, Strategy

Born to Have Good Search Rankings

Labels: Online Media, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Extending the Reach and Effectiveness of Your Marketing Efforts with Paid Search

Search Result for "Sex and the City handbag"

Search Result for "Sex and the City youtube contest"

In short, whether they knew when the article was being published or not, once it was printed they should have had a plan of action in place. Therefore, by having a Paid Search campaign ready to go, they could have started capitalizing on their affiliation with the movie some time ago, or at least immediately after the article was published.

The moral of the story here is that Paid Search should not be looked at just as an isolated medium or silo in your online marketing program. Rather it should be closely integrated into all of your marketing efforts as it can really work to extend their reach and life. By considering how people use the search engines to complete ideas and to find what they are looking for based on what they have seen elsewhere, you can really garner tremendous added value from your marketing investment.

Therefore, whether you are doing a big PR Campaign or multifaceted advertising campaign, be sure to think about what happens next and the fact that by integrating Paid Search into your campaign strategy you can really extend its life and grow your business in the process.

Labels: Integration, Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Strategy

One Stop Search Shopping

Labels: Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Yahoo

Paid and Natural Search - Complimentary Mediums

I was recently asked the following question by a client: "If we are appearing in the Natural Search Engine Results, why should we we also be paying to appear in the Paid Search results for the same term?" In short, if they're getting the clicks for free, why should they be paying for them as well?

However, I don't think the answer is really that simple, as a truly effective search engine marketing campaign is not about Paid vs. Natural, rather its about understanding what makes each medium strong thereby playing to and understanding those strengths.

However for the sake of the issue at hand, my task was to explain the value of maintaining a paid search presence in the wake of appearing naturally as well. So below, is what I believe is strong case for why you should continue to go with a Paid Presence for terms that you also may be appearing naturally for.

• Message Control
  With Paid Search, you have the ability to definitively control the message that is being communicated to the searcher on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). What I mean by this is that the message and copy that accompanies a Natural Result can be pulled from your meta data or page content. However, unless you have taken time to carefully craft you meta data, very often the message that is displayed is not a very solid marketing statement.
  
  Therefore, one must remember that even natural results have a click-through rate and while you might have a great position, if the accompanying description does not make sense, a user may look over it. Therefore, this is where a Paid Search result can supplement this problem, as you can easily craft a tight and cohesive message that says what you, NOT the search engine, want it to say.
  
• Destination Control
  With Paid Search, you also have the ability to decide where you want to direct the user. However, the destination for a Natural Result for the same term is determined by the Search Engine’s algorithm, and while the engines are pretty smart when it comes to determining relevancy, their vision does not always match-up with yours.
  
  Therefore, with paid search you can decide exactly where the user will go and what they will see. Of course it must be relevant, but YOU have the ability to determine this.
  


• Change Control
  With paid search, you also have the ability to change both your messaging and your destination, whenever you want to. Therefore, if you want change how your site is associated with a certain term; you can do this on both a Messaging and Destination level… all at a moment’s notice.
  
  However, with Natural SEO, your associated message and destination is pretty much fixed and does not necessarily change all that often. While you can update the description, you must wait until the page in question gets re-indexed and you are still relegated to the same destination, as that page is where the search engine has determined the most relevant content resides.


• Dominating Page Real Estate
  Having both a paid and natural presence also enables you to maintain a more dominant presence on the Search Engine Result Page, which ensures that you will get maximum traction.
  
  Below is a heat map, which shows how and where people look at search results. As you will see there is huge amount of traction with both the paid and natural results. Therefore, if you are not in the paid results you are not necessarily garnering all of the available opportunity on the Search Engine Result Page.

Labels: Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Strategy

Yahoogle! –

Labels: Google, Industry, Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Yahoo

Look Out - Here Comes Yahoogle!

1. No More Panama
First, Microsoft claims Yahoogle! would fundamentally undermine Yahoo!’s own strategy and long-term viability by encouraging advertisers to use Google as opposed to your Panama paid search system. This would also fragment their search advertising and display advertising strategies and the ecosystem surrounding them. This would undermine the reliance on Yahoo’s display advertising business to fuel future growth.

2. Talent Will Flee
Given this, Yahoogle! would impair Yahoo’s ability to retain the talented engineers working on advertising systems that are important to Microsoft’s interest in a combination of the two companies.

3. Here Come The Feds
In addition, Microsoft claims Yahoogle! would raise a host of regulatory and legal problems that no acquirer, including Microsoft, would want to inherit. Among other things, this would consolidate market share with the already-dominant paid search provider in a manner that would reduce competition and choice in the marketplace.

4. Google Now Sets Every Price
Yahoogle! would also effectively enable Google to set the prices for key search terms on both their own and Yahoo’s search platforms and, in the process, raise prices charged to advertisers on Yahoo. In addition to whatever resulting legal problems, Microsoft feels that this is unwise from a business perspective unless in fact one simply wishes to use this as a vehicle to exit the paid search business in favor of Google.

5. Minimal Prospects for Dating and/or Marriage
Yahoogle! could foreclose any chance of a combination with any other search provider that is not already relying on Google’s search services.

So what do you think? Is Yahoogle! good or bad? Whether you agree with Microsoft or not, the paid search and online advertising landscape is quickly changing and Yahoogle! is certainly going to play role in paving the way.

To read the full text of the letter that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent to Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang on Saturday, May 3rd in which they formally withdrew their offer to acquire Yahoo, please click on the on the following URL -
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/may08/05-03letter.mspx

Labels: Google, Industry, Online Media, Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Yahoo

Universal Search Gives Small Businesses Visibility

Before universal search, if you owned a restaurant/lounge in Boston and wanted to show up on Google for a search for “Boston restaurant lounge”, you were in for a real uphill battle. The first page of search results for this query were likely a combination of food delivery services, restaurant reviews, a link to the chain restaurant Boston Market’s website and maybe even a Wikipedia entry on the Union Oyster House – the nation’s oldest operating restaurant.

Either way, it was going to be close to impossible to get your 3 page site to pop for that search query. You would need to develop deep content that includes the high value keywords, used at the optimal frequency. You would likely need to create several pages and come up with an interlinking strategy in order to create enough content surrounding the important terms to help increase rankings.

Now that you have content, you would still likely need to create some additional linking opportunities to get up on the first page. You could try using an RSS feed press release with embedded anchor text links for the high value search terms that point back to your site. After all of this work- you might be able to get on page one, but of course there are no guarantees in SEO. But, the real challenge lies in the fact that most small business owners are too busy running their business to expend resources on this scale.

But- there is now hope for the small business owner thanks to universal search. One way for small business owners to get up to the top of the search results page would be to optimize their site in Google Maps. No need for content and link development; anyone with basic knowledge can simply add their location to the map, and then claim and customize their business listing in the map. Google will let you upload images, hours of operation, a description of the business and a link pointing back to your website- all without media expenses. You can also help your cause by offering incentives for your regular customers to log on and write a favorable review of your establishment.

Once a business owner claims the business and uploads the information and tags based on high value keywords, the business will begin to show up in map results. And now that Google is showing map content at the top of the standard search results, that means your small business could get the top listing on the page for searches on high value terms. Now, when people search for "Boston restaurant lounge" on Google- new and existing customers have a chance to find you.

Labels: Google, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Database Driven Website Have Duplicate Content? Here's A Workaround

Labels: Google, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Wordpress SEO Plugins and Other Quick Blog Tips

Labels: Blog Outreach, Industry, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), web 2.0

Using Meta Search to Make Intelligent Travel Choices

Everyone who has ever spent any time traveling for business or for pleasure has an airline horror story:

“They lost my luggage and I had to buy all new stuff when I got to the hotel!”

‘We sat on the tarmac for three hours and then they canceled the flight!”

“My plane was so small you couldn’t even stand up in the aisles!”

What if you could find out which flights were almost always late? Or see the type of aircraft you were going fly? Or access what the load factor was for a particular flight before you purchased that non-refundable ticket?

You can get this information now if you’re willing to spend a fair amount of time on multiple web sites to ferret it out but wouldn’t it be nice to find everything related to the speed, comfort, and ease of your flight in one spot? Take a look at InsideTrip.com (http://www.insidetrip.com/) when you’re planning your next flight.

The site is still in Beta so there are limits on the carriers listed and the type of passengers (adults only for now) but the real value here is in the depth and breadth of useful information available to the average airline traveler. The interface is simple and very familiar to anyone who has ever booked a flight on any of the major travel sites or through an individual carrier’s site. Pick your departure and arrival cities, enter your travel dates, and decide on the time of day you want to fly. Click on the search button and in addition to seeing the results of your search in a listing of carriers, flight times, and connecting flight numbers you get a flight dashboard that assigns a quality score to each flight.

The quality score is determined by a dozen preset variables you can modify to ensure that the flight you choose matches your preferences. Always carry on your bags and never check anything? De-select the “Lost Bags” variable and ask InsideTrip.com to recalculate the trip quality score. Know that you get habitually get to the airport more than an hour ahead of the time the airline recommends so security wait time isn’t an issue for you? Again, a simple mouse click removes that variable from the quality score calculation.

This redefinition of meta-search for the travel industry has implications for search marketing as well. The move away from simple text listings and toward more all-inclusive results for searches is already well underway: Google’s Universal Search now includes images, videos, and other items in their search results while Ask.com and other search engines provide site thumbnails as a standard part of their results listings. This expansion of types of data in search results means sites need to implement a consistent approach to tagging their site content because being “search-friendly” now applies to more than text-only keywords.

Imagine you’re searching for a software tool to help make your sales force more productive and when the results come up, one company’s listing shows only a few of lines of text describing their product while another company offers not only the few lines of product text but also access to their deployment metrics, pricing matrix, and a few customer testimonials relevant to your industry?

Which site do you think you'd click on first?

Labels: Integration, Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Google Subscribed Links Offers Powerful Branding Opportunity in Search Results

It's a far cry from Yahoo Search Submit Pro, which permits websites to intertwine paid ads with search organic results. Google’s Subscribed Link model is subscription based – it allows your visitors (with a Google account) to view a custom listing for your website in a search result. Because the listing is formed from a feed, the search listing can be updated in near real-time, potentially giving a powerful advantage to e-commerce and news websites. Google offers this service free to both webmasters and searchers.

What’s more impressive is that images and Google Gadgets can be incorporated within the feed; plus, you can specify the keywords that you want to trigger the custom search listing. To some extent, the performance of Subscribed Links can be measured through URL tracking.

Google Subscribed Links works like this:

1. A developer designs a feed and pastes the resulting button code on their site. View the subscribed links developer guide.
2. Your site visitors subscribe by clicking the button.

3. At some point in the future, the person who subscribed to your feed will likely conduct a search for one of your trigger terms. Assuming the searcher is logged in to Google, your customized feed will display. Below is an example of a subscribed link for Weather.com

Of course, designing and managing the site feed requires at least a minimal command of XML and HTML. Additionally, you’re going have to induce your visitors to subscribe to the link (market the marketing tool); however, the potential opportunity for visitor retention and branding is just too good to pass up, particularly if your website ranks highly for frequently searched keywords. View examples of Google Subscribed Links.

One application of this new product that springs to mind is to serve as a complement to paid search campaigns. You could post a Subscription Link button on a landing page for a pay-per-click campaign. A visitor in the early stages of their search may not be prepared to convert right away, but assuming your site ranks organically, e-marketers could conceivably push customized natural listings to the prospect at every stage of their search and entice a conversion at a later time.

Labels: Google, Industry, Integration, Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)