We have been covering Google Ad Manager since its launch and also since we started using it. The biggest complaint from shoemoney readers was that they could not get accepted into the beta. Well its now open to everyone who has a Adsense account. From the Adsense blog: Now we’re excited to bring those benefits to all [...]

I am guessing most of you use Google Webmaster Tools.  You probably set it up like year(s) ago and its just been there running good for you… Well did you know you can add some quick stats to your iGoogle Google homepage. Simply go into your account… go down to tools then gadgets: Then just pick the [...]

Google announced that they are going to implement their Google Suggest search suggestion feature on Google.com. This change will help searchers find popular keywords that other searchers recently searched for.

Short Term Search Influence on Search

When this search suggest change is coupled with the recent launch of automatic matching and the new quality score update it may consolidate PPC competition against a smaller set of core industry keywords. Some outlier keywords, like misspelled terms, are going to be much harder to build a traffic stream from.

This will also likely have the effect of focusing organic search attention on a smaller set of well defined queries. And the extra competition in the PPC space will drive yet more competitors to adopt SEO practices. But as an SEO smarter than 99.9% of other web publishers, you have some profitable drafting opportunities you can use to build a profitable search traffic stream. :)

SEO Drafting Tips

1. Search Query Drafting: If you can create a brand that starts with and industry keyword and drive search volume on it then your brand can show up for some people looking for the broader topic. For example, a webmaster may not have enough PageRank/link authority to rank for seo, but if they can create enough hype around their brand then maybe people search for it and their brand related search query shows up as a suggestion around the broader search queries. This is something that should also be taken into consideration when coming up with official names and page titles for leading resource oriented linkbaits.
2. Brand Drafting: If SEO Book is a decently strong brand and a fairly generic keyword, and SEO Books is the second most popular term suggested right below it then you might be able to pick up some of that search volume by ranking at or near the top for that alternate version. An April Hitwise blog post showed that in the US nearly 15% of brand related queries were intercepted by third part websites, and that was *before* Google launched search suggest directly on Google.com.
3. Brand Coupon/Discount Drafting: This is an extension of the above type of drafting, but rather than creating a compilation of sorts you focus on getting an affiliate commission for offering consumers a discount on the core brand. Many consumers will be reminded that there are coupons, discounts, promo codes, and reviews to find and read through when reviewing popular brands.
4. Media Drafting: This technology is already live on Youtube, so Youtube presents 4 ways to draft popular media.
• create a video optimized for a phrase that is already popular on YouTube
• create a video optimized for a phrase where you think the video has a good chance of ranking high in Google results
• create a video that has a title similar to other popular YouTube content that is watched by hundreds of thousands or millions of people
• create a relevant video that is a video reply to a video that is already well received

Long Term Search Influence on Search

• For websites and businesses that have no intent of building a real brand and intend to run primarily as an organic search arbitrage player the significance of domain name may be lowered significantly.
• As people get more acclimated with using search to navigate the web (as many people already do) then some brands and domain names that seemed too long and not viable may become viable marketing platforms.
• Conversely, short acronyms may lose some of their value as people become acclimated to having the search engine help complete their search queries.

Your Turn

How do you see search suggestion influencing how we search and how we write?

I love shirts and if properly done a interesting shirt can give you a ton of buzz. Here are some of my favorites from San Jose SES 2008. Adgooroo had all their people wearing shirts that said: I’m a tool: Use Me: This was pretty classic: And last but not least the searchme girls with their [...]

On my dev box I upgrade via subversion every night to the latest version. Its what is called “bleeding edge” and not considered stable (or even beta for that matter) but I love to dink around with what is coming. It should be noted wordpress 2.7 is scheduled for release on November 10th (more then [...]

A lot of wealth consultants and self help snake oil hucksters, the type who publish books and movies like Rhonda Byrne's The Secret, would like you to believe that if you believe something it will come true. This Amazon.com review sums up The Secret book/DVD nicely:

Byrne's book is problematic on many levels. On it's face, it's a manipulative marketing tool meant to flatter, confuse and deceive. It's also pseudoscience at its best, the last thing we need to encourage in an increasingly technological world which requires healthy skepticism and critical thought. Most damaging, though, is how the book perverts reality by encouraging people to equate a positive outlook on life with a childish, idiotic narcissism.

Negative thoughts can be a roadblock to growth. And positive thoughts do bring positive influences into your life, but material wealth is hollow, and it never makes you happy if you judge yourself based on it. Unless you print and control the money supply, someone else is richer than you are, and they will systematically eat your wealth via inflation.

In the last 20 years people in the UK became twice as rich but are no happier. Why?

• Destructive marketing selling to the ignorant by exploiting their emotions and irrational behaviors
• short term opportunism, greed, and a financial system that requires exponential growth to prevent itself from going bankrupt - while requiring most people to live under unnecessary debt & financial stress
• social norms that put the economy first - believing in no limits, pushing us until we melt down, and value possessions more than social relationships, happiness and life

Many of the pyramid scheme marketers will teach that you simply need to visualize yourself owning something and you will get whatever you wish for. They do so because if you have enough intellectual sloth and/or greed to believe that, they know they can keep selling you more worthless crap at higher price points. I only find it fitting that the people who created The Secret, selling the garbage story of limitless wealth, are stuck in legal turmoil. Hey, they must have wanted to waste 5% or 10% or 20% of their earnings on legal fees. They simply closed their eyes, thought of spending lots of money on lawyers, and the lawsuits magically manifested. :) :) :)

The Secret is drivel, The Secret is slimy, and The Secret is a scam. If The Secret teaches you anything, it should be that if you work with greedy people willing to lie to make a dollar, they will eventually show you that they are sleazy and morally deplorable on other fronts as well. Just give them time to manifest that experience for you.

Almost everyone I have known who has become successful online has worked 12+ hour days, learned for years, took big risks, and had a few lucky breaks. By networking, learning your market, investing, and being around for a while, you put yourself in position to have a big lucky break...that lucky opportunity doesn't manifest itself when you close your eyes and think of sports cars. It is hard to daydream your way to happiness and success.

Planet Earth - like the Cosmos - is beautiful, rich, deep, and diverse. But our little planet is not an infinite resource and is not infinite garbage can.

Adult Mosaic takes your uploaded image and creates a new one with a collage of adult images from around the web. Pretty interesting! This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog Adult Mosaic

Over the years I have spoken at a number of Internet marketing and personal development conferences.

The one question I am asked again and again is "when are you going to hold you own conference?"

The time has arrived!

On October 24-26, 2008, I am going to welcome fifty (50) people to join me for a 3-day event in Denver, Colorado.

It's called "Elevate 2008"

What is going to take place at this event?

When Kevin Ryan came onto the scene as SES’s “new Danny Sullivan”, I think many previous SES fans were kind of curious to see what exactly he would do with it.  It had been mentioned that Kevin was going to put his own brand on SES, and well, he has done exactly that. Now, since I [...]

At SES San Jose I got a chance to interview Nicole Adams from Searchme: If you have not checked out Searchme yet give it a go. It has a slick interface with iTunes like paging. The image below shows the results for shoemoney. Searchme was named as one of the 50 best [...]