Imagine you own a popular coffee chain in Denver that you want to promote. On Monday afternoon, it’s warm and 80 degrees in the city. You run a display ad campaign online that offers Denverites a discount coupon for an iced cold latte, with a searchable map embedded in the ad to show local branches, and a real-time feed from people who have tweeted publicly about your newest flavor. That evening, a cold front rolls over the Rockies. Your ad automatically and dynamically adjusts to present a photo of a hot, steaming cup of hot chocolate in front of a warm fireplace, together with a home delivery number and an offer of free marshmallows.
Creative? Absolutely. Impossible? Hardly. You can do this today using technology from Teracent that we’re working to roll out for clients who advertise on the Google Content Network or who use DoubleClick Rich Media.
There’s no doubt that advertisers today are increasingly seeking to run campaigns that are highly measurable and relevant to users. That’s one of the benefits of advertising on the Internet. But great ad campaigns are about more than clicks or numbers. The best campaigns are so memorable and effective because they make an emotional bond with us. The very best can engage us, move us and make us feel a connection with the brand that’s being promoted. That’s the real creative genius of advertising.
We traditionally think of TV as the most creative advertising media. But display advertising has the promise of a couple of things that even TV doesn't have — the ability to dynamically customize ads in infinite ways and the opportunity to enable a true two-way interaction and dialogue with users.
Here are some examples of how creative ads have been used to drive engagement and deliver great results:
* An award-winning rich media ad that was created by Euro RSCG for the new Volvo XC60. In addition to an interactive game, photos and gallery, it incorporated a Twitter feed from the New York Auto show. In just three days, the campaign garnered 170 million impressions, 50,000 clicks and 17,000 hours of brand engagement. No other type of advertising format could have come close in driving this type of conversation with a brand's potential customers.
* A great campaign for Harley Davidson, created by the agency Overdrive. This ad functions almost like a website — with interactive video, Twitter and Facebook Share functionality, as it invites people to send a "Tribute to the Troops" for Veteran's Day. Over 280,000 people clicked to watch the video embedded in the ads and more than 18,000 Tributes were sent to troops from this campaign.
Some in google industry have asked why google aren’t seeing more creative display ad campaigns like these. In google view, it’s definitely not because of a lack of creativity or an unwillingness to experiment. The problem to date has been the lack of tools and technologies necessary to do this at scale across the Internet.
It takes hard work to create, serve and measure the impact of these ads. Under the hood, there’s a lot of technology that needs to come together for them to work seamlessly. Take the Harley Davidson ad: It contains dozens of complex creative elements, integrations with various technologies like Flash, numerous APIs, Twitter and Facebook, and multiple parties involved in its creation and delivery — from the creative agency, to teams at Google, through to the ad operations teams at the publisher. You could spend hundreds or thousands of hours building out creative concepts and ads like this, but ultimately only run them on a few sites because the customization takes so much time to implement across the web.
We believe that technology, by streamlining and eliminating some of the hard work involved, and by offering new creative possibilities, can be a great enabler of more creative ads.
What if it were seamless to serve and run highly creative ad units — not just on one site, but on thousands of sites, and also in videos and on mobile phones? What if it were simpler to incorporate social features in the ad creative itself — such as letting people endorse and spread particular ads or campaigns to their friends? What if you could serve video ads that included simple tools in the ad creative itself that allowed users to easily make their own mashups of your ad, and post and share them with friends?
And what if you could make a few different creative elements for an ad, and then have them dynamically chosen, depending on factors like where the ad’s shown, product availability, time of day and any other variable you choose — just like the coffee ad I mentioned at the start? That way, agencies and advertisers would be able to spend their time building out their creative concepts and ads, and technology can multiply the impact by running it on thousands of sites with millions of variations for every website and user.
Technology is evolving rapidly and will help facilitate all of this in the months and years ahead. What about imagining what might be possible on your phone in a few years? Let’s say you're walking down the street, using an augmented reality app on your mobile phone to see what's interesting around you. In your viewfinder, you see a billboard for a great product — basketball shoes. Using image recognition, the app could recognize that it's a billboard for a particular shoe brand, show an expandable ad for that brand, let you choose to watch a video of one of their shoes in action, display all the nearest stores on an accompanying map, and include a way for you to order a shoe and pick it up on your way home from work.
That’s just one example of what one day will be possible in the world of display advertising. It’s the goal of google display advertising efforts to produce the tools and technologies to allow for this type of unbridled creativity at a grand scale.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Collaborative bookmarking with lists
Earlier this month google added stars in search so that you can easily mark and rediscover your favorite websites. Today google debuting lists in Google Bookmarks, an experimental new feature that helps you easily share those sites with friends.
Bookmarks are a great way to keep track of your favorite content across the web and we want to help you share them with your friends. To use lists, visit Google Bookmarks at google.com/bookmarks or by clicking “Manage all” in your Google Toolbar. From there, select the links you want to share and click “Copy to list.” Lists are private by default, but once you’ve created one you can share it with specific friends or even publish it to the web. For example, if a friend of yours is visiting Seattle for the first time and you have some local attractions bookmarked, you might want to create a new list for “Seattle attractions” and share it with your friend.
Sharing lists can help you collaborate with your friends on common interests or activities. Let’s say you’re planning a group trip to Paris. With a list, everyone can contribute useful links and resources, such as packing lists, hotel links, flight information and attractions. You could also create lists for your favorite hobbies, and then share them with friends who share your interests. Lists dynamically generate previews for many pages so you can get a sense of the site before clicking.
Lists also help you discover new web content. For example, once you’ve created your list of favorite Seattle attractions, Google will algorithmically analyze your list to identify other potentially relevant links, such as the Seattle Aquarium. Similarly, when google detect that a list is relevant to a specific region, we provide a map of those places and relevant info for each place, such as addresses, hours and reviews.
Bookmarks are a great way to keep track of your favorite content across the web and we want to help you share them with your friends. To use lists, visit Google Bookmarks at google.com/bookmarks or by clicking “Manage all” in your Google Toolbar. From there, select the links you want to share and click “Copy to list.” Lists are private by default, but once you’ve created one you can share it with specific friends or even publish it to the web. For example, if a friend of yours is visiting Seattle for the first time and you have some local attractions bookmarked, you might want to create a new list for “Seattle attractions” and share it with your friend.
Sharing lists can help you collaborate with your friends on common interests or activities. Let’s say you’re planning a group trip to Paris. With a list, everyone can contribute useful links and resources, such as packing lists, hotel links, flight information and attractions. You could also create lists for your favorite hobbies, and then share them with friends who share your interests. Lists dynamically generate previews for many pages so you can get a sense of the site before clicking.
Lists also help you discover new web content. For example, once you’ve created your list of favorite Seattle attractions, Google will algorithmically analyze your list to identify other potentially relevant links, such as the Seattle Aquarium. Similarly, when google detect that a list is relevant to a specific region, we provide a map of those places and relevant info for each place, such as addresses, hours and reviews.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Getting Targeted Traffic to your Blog using Google Adword
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Google Adwords is a great tool to drive targeted traffic to your blog. You can target specific keywords from your blog that you know people will be searching for. You’ll know the keywords from having done your research on search trends and competition when you set up your blog. Which obviously means you are putting your ad in front of a hungry audience (the best kind!).
Now there’s a lot of free and paid for information out there for Adwords. I started out by using Google Cash, it was recommended to me by a writing newsletter I subscribe to (Google Cash 3 has recently been released). I also subscribed to any free courses that I came across (they are after your email address but you can always unsubscribe afterwards).
But don’t forget Google itself! adwords.google.com explains exactly what adwords does and the best way to utilise it. It also has a help centre that’s crammed full of information, demo’s, guides, troubleshooting and FAQ’s. The information is useful and they take you through each step in producing an adwords ad. It’s all free to use, just sign up for an account and have a look around
Google Adwords is a great tool to drive targeted traffic to your blog. You can target specific keywords from your blog that you know people will be searching for. You’ll know the keywords from having done your research on search trends and competition when you set up your blog. Which obviously means you are putting your ad in front of a hungry audience (the best kind!).
Now there’s a lot of free and paid for information out there for Adwords. I started out by using Google Cash, it was recommended to me by a writing newsletter I subscribe to (Google Cash 3 has recently been released). I also subscribed to any free courses that I came across (they are after your email address but you can always unsubscribe afterwards).
But don’t forget Google itself! adwords.google.com explains exactly what adwords does and the best way to utilise it. It also has a help centre that’s crammed full of information, demo’s, guides, troubleshooting and FAQ’s. The information is useful and they take you through each step in producing an adwords ad. It’s all free to use, just sign up for an account and have a look around
Get Traffic to your blog from Emails!
So how can you get traffic to your blog from emails?
Add your blog address to your email signature like we did with forums. You can add a message to the signature, inviting your recipient to pass your information on to a friend if they enjoyed your blog.
Then every time you email your list (if you have one) or family or friends, then your blog address is sent with it, giving you more exposure. And hopefully if they do enjoy your blog and pass it on, then it can become viral and bring in traffic for your blog over some time!
Add your blog address to your email signature like we did with forums. You can add a message to the signature, inviting your recipient to pass your information on to a friend if they enjoyed your blog.
Then every time you email your list (if you have one) or family or friends, then your blog address is sent with it, giving you more exposure. And hopefully if they do enjoy your blog and pass it on, then it can become viral and bring in traffic for your blog over some time!
Thursday, March 18, 2010
sites to get more traffic to your blog to earn
Once you’ve submitted your blog to those directories, they will categorize you, and your blog will “ping” their servers every time you’ve created/updated a posting on your blog, which is a fancy way of saying “you’ve informed them that you’ve updated your blog”, which in simple terms…This does great things for your blog in terms of search engine optimization.
Once you’ve added your blog to the directories, the next important thing you need to do is submit your postings to the major Social Media Networking sites, such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Del.icio.us, and more. While it’s not required that you add every posting that you post, I do recommend it – or at least the majority of your postings. If you think somebody would be interested in reading a particular posting – submit it. It’s only going to help you in the end. Now, I bet you’re wondering how many Social Media Networks do I need to submit my article to? Well – that’s up to you, as a blogger. The more you submit to, the more traffic you’ll see and more exposure you’ll get, but, it can be time consuming. So, if you don’t have the time to submit it to all of the Social Media Networks, pick the best ones, such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and Google Bookmarks. Here is a list of other Media Networks that you might be interested in:
* Searchles
* Technorati
* Blogg Buzz
* Del.icio.us
* StumbleUpon
* Reddit
* Digg
* Yahoo! My Web
* Clipmarks
* BlogMarks
* Furl
* Google Bookmarks
* Blue Dot
* NetVouz
* Diigo
* Del.lirio.us
* Feedmarker
* Scuttle
* Simpy
* Mag.nolia
Now those two methods mentioned above are sure fire ways to get more traffic to your blog, but do remember, fresh and new content is needed for those methods to work. It can be a tedious, and an annoying process at first, but the end result will be well worth all of your troubles.
The next main way to get traffic onto your blog is to properly use search engines to your benefit. When you are creating postings on your blog, you will see areas within your posting form (a posting form is the form or template that allows you to post your articles) that will allow you to enter “keywords” and “keyword phrases”. What you will do in this situation is add in any keyword that you feel relates to your article. So, when somebody goes to a search engine and types in “shoes” or “brown shoes”, make sure you’ve added those keywords and keyword phrases if your posting is about shoes. It is important to stay on topic though. Don’t add in keywords about foods, if your posting is about shoes.
One last important way to generate traffic to your blog is to create a sitemap. Now, if you use Wordpress, there are automatic ways to do this. You can download a plugin that will do it for you, and make your life very easy. If you’re using another blogging platform, what you’ll need to do is go to Google’s Webmaster Tools and create a sitemap. This will allow search engines to properly dissect all of your keywords, meta tags, posting titles, etc, and break them down for better search engine results.
Now that you’ve got all of the blog directories and article submissions out of the way, it’s simply a matter of keeping fresh content on your blog, and becoming a social blogger. And what is a social blogger you ask? Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like – getting out there and mingling with other bloggers. Make connections with them – cross promote links – feature their sites on your site, and vice versa. Add them to your BlogRoll (friends links) and have them do the same. You can never have too much promotion…and don’t be afraid either. Other bloggers are just as excited to work with you, as you are with them. Do whatever you can to make friends with them – leave comments, e-mail them, etc.
Follow these steps, and your blog will be featuring heavy traffic numbers in a very short time. At first, it will be a lot of hard work, but once you start seeing the results, you’ll see that it was worth the effort
Once you’ve added your blog to the directories, the next important thing you need to do is submit your postings to the major Social Media Networking sites, such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Del.icio.us, and more. While it’s not required that you add every posting that you post, I do recommend it – or at least the majority of your postings. If you think somebody would be interested in reading a particular posting – submit it. It’s only going to help you in the end. Now, I bet you’re wondering how many Social Media Networks do I need to submit my article to? Well – that’s up to you, as a blogger. The more you submit to, the more traffic you’ll see and more exposure you’ll get, but, it can be time consuming. So, if you don’t have the time to submit it to all of the Social Media Networks, pick the best ones, such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and Google Bookmarks. Here is a list of other Media Networks that you might be interested in:
* Searchles
* Technorati
* Blogg Buzz
* Del.icio.us
* StumbleUpon
* Digg
* Yahoo! My Web
* Clipmarks
* BlogMarks
* Furl
* Google Bookmarks
* Blue Dot
* NetVouz
* Diigo
* Del.lirio.us
* Feedmarker
* Scuttle
* Simpy
* Mag.nolia
Now those two methods mentioned above are sure fire ways to get more traffic to your blog, but do remember, fresh and new content is needed for those methods to work. It can be a tedious, and an annoying process at first, but the end result will be well worth all of your troubles.
The next main way to get traffic onto your blog is to properly use search engines to your benefit. When you are creating postings on your blog, you will see areas within your posting form (a posting form is the form or template that allows you to post your articles) that will allow you to enter “keywords” and “keyword phrases”. What you will do in this situation is add in any keyword that you feel relates to your article. So, when somebody goes to a search engine and types in “shoes” or “brown shoes”, make sure you’ve added those keywords and keyword phrases if your posting is about shoes. It is important to stay on topic though. Don’t add in keywords about foods, if your posting is about shoes.
One last important way to generate traffic to your blog is to create a sitemap. Now, if you use Wordpress, there are automatic ways to do this. You can download a plugin that will do it for you, and make your life very easy. If you’re using another blogging platform, what you’ll need to do is go to Google’s Webmaster Tools and create a sitemap. This will allow search engines to properly dissect all of your keywords, meta tags, posting titles, etc, and break them down for better search engine results.
Now that you’ve got all of the blog directories and article submissions out of the way, it’s simply a matter of keeping fresh content on your blog, and becoming a social blogger. And what is a social blogger you ask? Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like – getting out there and mingling with other bloggers. Make connections with them – cross promote links – feature their sites on your site, and vice versa. Add them to your BlogRoll (friends links) and have them do the same. You can never have too much promotion…and don’t be afraid either. Other bloggers are just as excited to work with you, as you are with them. Do whatever you can to make friends with them – leave comments, e-mail them, etc.
Follow these steps, and your blog will be featuring heavy traffic numbers in a very short time. At first, it will be a lot of hard work, but once you start seeing the results, you’ll see that it was worth the effort
some sites from where you can get traffic
Getting Traffic To Your Blog
If you’re like 99% of bloggers, the main adversary in your quest to conquer the blogging world would be a lack of traffic. Getting traffic to your blog has always been considered a “difficult” process - but, it’s only difficult if you’re lacking the proper advice. Below, I’ll describe easy and sure-fire approaches that will send all sorts of new and constant traffic to your blog.
The most important way to get traffic to your new blog, is to work the Social Marketing aspect. And while this is the most important, it’s also the most time consuming. The first thing you need to do, once you’ve got at least 5-10 postings on your blog, is to submit your blog to many of the Blog Directories out in the Web. In reality, there are hundreds upon hundreds of Blog Directories on the web, and while you could submit your blog to all of them if you really wanted to, let’s just start with 10 of the more popular ones, which are:
* Blog Catalog
* BlogTopSites
* BlogTopList
* TopBlogArea
* DMOZ
* BlogFlux
* MyBlogLog
* BlogSiteZone
* OutPost Earth
* Photarium
If you’re like 99% of bloggers, the main adversary in your quest to conquer the blogging world would be a lack of traffic. Getting traffic to your blog has always been considered a “difficult” process - but, it’s only difficult if you’re lacking the proper advice. Below, I’ll describe easy and sure-fire approaches that will send all sorts of new and constant traffic to your blog.
The most important way to get traffic to your new blog, is to work the Social Marketing aspect. And while this is the most important, it’s also the most time consuming. The first thing you need to do, once you’ve got at least 5-10 postings on your blog, is to submit your blog to many of the Blog Directories out in the Web. In reality, there are hundreds upon hundreds of Blog Directories on the web, and while you could submit your blog to all of them if you really wanted to, let’s just start with 10 of the more popular ones, which are:
* Blog Catalog
* BlogTopSites
* BlogTopList
* TopBlogArea
* DMOZ
* BlogFlux
* MyBlogLog
* BlogSiteZone
* OutPost Earth
* Photarium
Easy Introduction on Increasing Traffic to Your Blog
Easy Introduction on Increasing Traffic to Your Blog
Increasing traffic to your blog is fundamental to your blog's success on the Internet. As you'll soon find, it isn't all that hard to increase traffic to your blog, but it does take time.
Post Frequently to Your Blog
The first and most important rule for increasing traffic to your blog is to post, post and then post some more. Posting new and unique content on a regular basis to your blog is crucial to success.
Building Inbound Links
Another critical method for getting traffic to your blog in through by establishing links to your site on other people's webpages. This servers two purposes for your blog. First, a link on someone else's site can be clicked on thus bringing a visitor to your site. Secondly, links on other sites pointing to your site factor into the equations that Google, Yahoo and MSN use to determine the order in which sites are listed in searches conducted on their site. These types of links are referred to as "inbound" links.
When you try to develop inbound links it is important to make sure that the links are relevant. For example, if your blog is about cars then it doesn't do a lot of good to have an inbound link from a website about vacation spots. Your goal is to get inbound links on sites similar to your blog or, at a minimum, sites that target the same type of people (age, gender, interest, etc.) as your blog.
To begin developing inbound links, do a search for other blogs that are relevant to your blog. If your blog is about cars then search "cars" in Blogger Search or Technorati (two of the bigger blog search engines). Browse through the results that you get and make a list of those that you think are well designed and interesting. In order to get a link on those blogs you will most likely have to give something in return and usually the easiest thing to give is a link to them. So from that list add a link on your blog for each of the blogs that you liked. Then, after doing so, email the owner of each of those site and write something along the lines of:
"Hello, my name is John and I write for Crazy Cars, a blog about cars. I've recently added a link to your site on my homepage because I feel that my readers are in a very similar demographic to that of your site. If you get a chance check my site out and if you like what you see please link back.
Thank you, John"
Remember that these blog owners don't owe you anything for you linking to them, but often if you ask nice you'll get a link back.
Submitting Your Blog to Blog Directories
Another way to build inbound links to your blog is by submitting your blog to blog and web directories. These directories contain literally thousands of websites and very rarely will someone come to your site by clicking on a link in one of the directories. However, including you blog in these directories can in many case help your ranking in search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc). Don't spend too much time doing this but if you have a little free time they are worth looking into.
Write Interesting Blog Content
Finally, and maybe the biggest key to increasing blog traffic is to write interesting and excellent content. The most powerful way to get people to your blog is to write content that your readers want to read. This will not only make people want to come back but it will also make them want to tell others about your blog. Anyone can get someone to come to their blog once but getting someone to come back again and again, that is the key to increasing your blog traffic.
So post often, build links so people can find you and then make sure to keep it interesting. They'll come...for now, work hard and be patient.
Increasing traffic to your blog is fundamental to your blog's success on the Internet. As you'll soon find, it isn't all that hard to increase traffic to your blog, but it does take time.
Post Frequently to Your Blog
The first and most important rule for increasing traffic to your blog is to post, post and then post some more. Posting new and unique content on a regular basis to your blog is crucial to success.
Building Inbound Links
Another critical method for getting traffic to your blog in through by establishing links to your site on other people's webpages. This servers two purposes for your blog. First, a link on someone else's site can be clicked on thus bringing a visitor to your site. Secondly, links on other sites pointing to your site factor into the equations that Google, Yahoo and MSN use to determine the order in which sites are listed in searches conducted on their site. These types of links are referred to as "inbound" links.
When you try to develop inbound links it is important to make sure that the links are relevant. For example, if your blog is about cars then it doesn't do a lot of good to have an inbound link from a website about vacation spots. Your goal is to get inbound links on sites similar to your blog or, at a minimum, sites that target the same type of people (age, gender, interest, etc.) as your blog.
To begin developing inbound links, do a search for other blogs that are relevant to your blog. If your blog is about cars then search "cars" in Blogger Search or Technorati (two of the bigger blog search engines). Browse through the results that you get and make a list of those that you think are well designed and interesting. In order to get a link on those blogs you will most likely have to give something in return and usually the easiest thing to give is a link to them. So from that list add a link on your blog for each of the blogs that you liked. Then, after doing so, email the owner of each of those site and write something along the lines of:
"Hello, my name is John and I write for Crazy Cars, a blog about cars. I've recently added a link to your site on my homepage because I feel that my readers are in a very similar demographic to that of your site. If you get a chance check my site out and if you like what you see please link back.
Thank you, John"
Remember that these blog owners don't owe you anything for you linking to them, but often if you ask nice you'll get a link back.
Submitting Your Blog to Blog Directories
Another way to build inbound links to your blog is by submitting your blog to blog and web directories. These directories contain literally thousands of websites and very rarely will someone come to your site by clicking on a link in one of the directories. However, including you blog in these directories can in many case help your ranking in search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc). Don't spend too much time doing this but if you have a little free time they are worth looking into.
Write Interesting Blog Content
Finally, and maybe the biggest key to increasing blog traffic is to write interesting and excellent content. The most powerful way to get people to your blog is to write content that your readers want to read. This will not only make people want to come back but it will also make them want to tell others about your blog. Anyone can get someone to come to their blog once but getting someone to come back again and again, that is the key to increasing your blog traffic.
So post often, build links so people can find you and then make sure to keep it interesting. They'll come...for now, work hard and be patient.
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