Optimize & Prophesize

Category: Search

  • Landing Page Resolution: 800×600 vs. 1024×768

    While not one of the eternal questions of our time, what screen resolution to build your landing page is nevertheless always a key design consideration. Many factors weigh into this decision. What are the browser resolution settings for the majority of your users? How does the page appear on different resolution setting (e.g. where is…

  • Why Mashups are Mandatory for Marketers

    No longer is the web about sites. It has become a database platform with lots of structured information. This change is profound. The strategic and creative use of this structured data (from REST APIs) is changing the way we interact with the web… and for the better. Deeper and more engaged user interactions are taking…

  • Optimization of Ads & Landing Pages by Keyword Match Type

    Exact Match, Broad Match, Phrase Match – Understanding Relevance and Unlocking Higher ROAS With the advent of quality scoring for ads understanding of match type has never been more important. I’m not referring to understanding how match type works from an ad serving perspective but understanding how match type drives clicks with different goals and…

  • Afterthoughts on SES San Jose

    SES San Jose 2007 started for me during the one-hour delay waiting for the gate to be fixed so I could board the Sunday night flight from Newark Airport. With all the Search knowledge waiting to get on board it was easy to kill the one-hour delay talking with Kevin Lee, Barry Schwartz and Tamar…

  • Ad Testing

    Ad testing can lead to huge increases in conversion rates. I don’t care if it is text based search ads, rich display and banner ads or video ads – all benefit site-side from advanced testing techniques done on the ads leading to these landings. We know marketing messages have a tremendous influence to persuade action.…

  • Behavioral Targeting is Not Just Banners

    Over the last year I’ve become immersed in the world of Behavioral Targeting (or BT as insiders refer to it). Of course, in many respects I’ve been doing BT for a long time. The key components that make up the qualitative and quantitative aspects of BT; segmentation, targeted creative, testing, and analytics are all built…

  • The Search Engine Election: 2008 Presidential Campaign Scorecard

    The immense power of search engines to reach people and influence behavior based on information discovery intentions is beyond debate. Still, with the 2008 Presidential Election little more than one year away the ability to quickly find relevant information on the candidate’s views and positions from the search engines, namely Google, is extremely poor. The…

  • Afterthoughts on SES Latino

    It’s hard to pin down why I liked SES Latino as much as I did. Tropical destination? Short plane ride? Two-day format? Part of it might be the session I participated in. Targeting Spanish/Portuguese Search Ads by Demographics and Behavior had some of the best case studies and tips that I’ve ever seen shared in…

  • Afterthoughts on SES Toronto

    If there was one word on the mind of folks I talked to at SES Toronto it would be “analytics.” Interesting since this was the exact same word on the mind of search marketers at SES New York a few months ago. Luckily there were a number of smart folks that really understand analytics to…

  • Engaging Users on the SERP – How Google Universal Search Changes Everything

    If you haven’t noticed over the past few weeks there has been a sea change on Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). Universal Search is what Google calls it but it’s much more than search. At its core it creates an entirely different engagement dynamic and search user experience. Until now the goal of Google’s…

  • 4 Strategies for Optimizing Name Tags

    How Changes in User Behaviors and Search Results can Increase Traffic, Drive Engagement and Deliver Relevance for Your Name, Event, Brand and Product I have noticed an interesting referrer trend in my analytics. A growing number Organic search traffic visitors are coming to my blog off name queries. Not my name but names of those…

  • Afterthoughts on SES New York City

    A full week of client kick-offs on the West Coast and back home to NYC for a week (actually three days) of Search Engine Strategies has rendered O&P without a post the past two weeks. With so much going on I wanted to first share some thoughts on what was one of the more enjoyable…

  • Google Pay Per Action Reaction

    With Google’s announcement that pay-per-action (PPA) ads are launching beta (on AdSense) the world of optimization and analytics may be forever changed, or not. As it works, you get to name your price and it will be Google that is measuring conversion and optimizing the serving of ads based on PPA. This becomes a real…

  • Buy Branded Keywords? A Case Study on Traffic, Conversion and RPV

    Part 3 of 3 This is the last part of my deep dive into a question that is asked quite often. Brand keywords have seemed to be a conundrum for many in the Marketing and Brandings worlds. This series of posts and research has yielded some interesting data. Like any good testing and optimization they…

  • 5 Lessons from Multivariate Tests on Google PPC Ads

    Search ads are the bridge of relevance between the keyword query and the landing page. They are a key factor in your Quality Score, affect the traffic to your site and thus your spend and budgets. They set user expectations for the landing page and influence conversion. At OTTO Digital we’ve been working with clients…

  • Information & Intent: Optimizing Content and the User Search Experience

    Everyone has a limited amount of attention to devote to searching for and consuming information. Each day a staggering amount of new information is added to the web and indexed by the search engines. How can your content get the attention of users? I spoke about this yesterday at the 49th Annual Conference of the…

  • 7 Ways to Optimize Your YouTube Tags

    I can’t get YouTube off my mind. With apologies to Gil Scott Heron, the revolution is being videoized. Contrary to popular opinion it just may be an ad revolution. H&R Block’s recent promo for their TaxCut online filing includes the most linked to comedy video in the history of YouTube. There has also been a…

  • 7 Rules for Landing Page Optimization

    This is by no means a definitive look at what matters on landing pages. There are more than seven rules. For additional insight I would direct you to this three-part series on Landing Page Optimization. However, these seven basic elements are ones I’ve used consistently for many years now with great results. 1. Have a…

  • Google Personalized Search: Goodbye Search Engine, Hello Find Engine

    For tens of millions of users, multiple times a day for each, Google just improved and it will keep on improving. All users need to do is continue using Google. That’s a pretty great way to create brand loyalty! How many products continue to get better the more you use them? A baseball glove, maybe…

  • More on the Promise of Behavioral Targeting

    Phil Leggiere has another great interview in today’s Behavioral Insider column titled “Beyond CPM: Bidding and Behavioral Data.” This time it’s with Alex Hooshmand of Right Media. Right Media is a transparent auction based platform that matches advertisers and publishers and optimizes ROI based on targeting. The exchange (RMX) officially opened to publishers this week.…