Here's a simple tool that I use in my email deliverability arsenal that helps eliminate spam words in my outbound messages. The script measures the likelihood that an email will fall into a recipient's "junk mail" folder in Outlook 2003. Outlook 2003 uses a word weighting system and this measurement does not guarantee delivery into other mail clients. However, the spam words indicated by Outlook 2003 are used in other inbox protection systems and we have found this tool to be very useful to help us clean up copy and increase the chance for delivery into all inboxes. Paste your email subject… Continue reading

If one of Google's most significant challenges is to clear the cesspool of content spam, the temptation to use analytics data must be stronger than ever.

There is already evidence that Google is factoring in domain age and the presence of legitimacy indicators on site pages. There's even talk of giving more credibility to well branded sites or certain types of sites. But one of the more significant factors mentioned in one of Google's patents is "time spent on the document".

Longer time on the… Continue reading

I just taught email marketing and Universal Search techniques at a small business marketing conference.

A well intended friend asked me why I "wasted time speaking at a small business marketing conference." He went on to suggest that I only target major conferences that attract 'bigger' clients.

At the conference, I was joined by some excellent speakers who also regularly serve large clients. But I suspect that's not why they were there. It's certainly not why I was there.

In online marketing, small businesses run circles around corporate America. Unburdened by red tape, they test, fail, innovate, fail, try one more time and succeed. It's inspiring. It's educational. And it's really fun.

In the email marketing session, at least 80% of the Continue reading

Sure, we teach search marketing online, but I assert that Search Engine Strategies is a must-attend conference for any internet marketer who can travel to the event.

We'll be making some announcements at the conference and all active faculty and associates are presenting . Come by the booth and say hello to Market Motive founders and faculty.

Dream Team member Todd Malicoat and others are hosting a special party on Monday night where all proceeds go to charity. Some of the biggest names in search will be present and there'll be… Continue reading

How many people do you pay to touch your web presence? Nowadays, anyone who changes your site or outbound communication has the potential to derail your hard-earned search marketing progress.

Sure, your staff and consultants are smart - and well intended. But this isn't enough today. Anyone with access must now have a basic knowledge of search marketing. If you have a large staff, I'll bet you're starting to get the picture.

Are you already familiar with some of the following mistakes? Perhaps your:

• Writers didn't include your top keywords in the main copy
• Design team

Did you know that your web analytics system can be applied to your search engine optimization strategy? The keywords your visitors used to get to your site are prime candidates for optimization. But don't just look at visit counts for each keyword, because that's only a small part of the story.

To take advantage of this process, you will need three things in place:

1. You must reveal the goal of your site to your web analytics tool. For example, your "Thank you" page, or your email-sign-up-page might be a goal. If you have an e-commerce site, your order confirmation page is usually

Most of the Market Motive Faculty attended and/or spoke at the recent Search Engine Strategies New York. I believe this is the first full SES conference without Danny Sullivan. Though he is missed, the Incisive management team put on an excellent conference attended by over 8,000 folks looking to learn about online marketing. Market Motive did a co-promotion with Incisive, so while I try to avoid shipping booths & staff cross country, we took a space on the show floor. Honestly, I'm glad we did. I jot down notes on each day's experiences at these events, so here… Continue reading

Or: Three ways to get around misleading paid search reporting:

Most of us feel good when we see a positive ROI on our paid search campaigns. And most analytics tools give us plenty of opportunity to feel good about our campaigns.

But there is an inherent lie in the majority of PPC reporting tools, and that lie is based on the assumption that you have zero cost of goods. With few exceptions your products DO cost you something and thus any ROI analysis should be influenced by profit which in turn requires knowledge of margins.

When your campaign performance is measured by… Continue reading

I just returned from Pubcon 2007 Las Vegas. After every conference, a few events stand out as particularly good.. or particularly bad. Here are mine: To the speakers who still reveal how it really works. Neil, Rand, Aaron, Todd, and others kept the spirit of Pubcon by sharing some raw, unfiltered truths of how things really work in SEO, social media and SEM. To Joe Morin for arranging for us to see… Continue reading

You've decided you need consulting help, but don't want to lock in a contract until you know more about the consultant's work. It's a Catch-22. Solution: Get an initial audit. It's a great way to get a glimpse of the quality of intuition and delivery from your prospective consultant. An initial audit should contain observations and recommendations in each significant service area that may be provided by your consultant. For example, we cover Web Analytics, SEO, Paid Search/PPC, Email Marketing, Conversion and Online Publicity in most audits. But the weighting varies according to the need of the client. It's a sampling… Continue reading