If you search for eBay, though, you’ll find only a single listing — an unpaid one. Odds are, after marketers at Amazon, Walgreens and elsewhere catch wind of a preliminary study released on Friday, their search listings will start to look a lot more like eBay’s. The study — by eBay Research Labs economists Thomas Blake, Chris Noskos, and Steve Tadelis — analyzed eBay sales after shutting down purchases of search ads on Google and elsewhere, while maintaining a control set of regions where search ads continued unchanged. Their findings suggest that many paid ads generate virtually no increase in sales, and even for ones that do, the sales benefits are far eclipsed by the cost of the ads themselves.

Companies spend enormous sums on marketing their products. Yet it’s notoriously difficult to measure the impact of ad expenditures. Companies advertise heavily at times when they hope to sell a lot — like Christmas Eve and Boxing Day — and in areas where they expect to see their sales grow. So a naïve examination of the relationship between ad expenditures and revenues will of course find they move in sync, even if customers don’t pay the ads any mind.

Advertising has also traditionally produced a lot of waste — I see ads for Brioni suits when I open up the morning paper, even though the last time I wore a suit was on my wedding day. The study’s authors quote 19th century retailer John Wannamaker: “I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but I can never find out which half.”

The internet promised to change all that. Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others gave sellers the opportunity to target their pitches to customers who were plausibly interested in their products. That’s why paid ads for Amazon come up in response to a search for books, but not life insurance. Further aligning the interests of companies and consumers, advertisers only get charged for paid search listings that actually get clicked on, ensuring that they pay for attracting genuinely interested customers.

But what do companies actually get for the billions they now spend on search marketing? The eBay team began by examining whether there’s any benefit to buying search ads that contain the word “ebay.” In these cases, it’s possible that in the absence of paid listings, customers would simply click on the unpaid — or “natural” — listing, which would appear at the top of the search anyway. So in March 2012, eBay conducted a controlled trial to see what would happen if they shut off this “branded keyword advertising” by halting their purchases of search ads containing the word “ebay” on Microsoft and Yahoo search engines, while continuing to purchase search ads on Google as a control. There was no change in eBay sales via Yahoo and Bing, relative to those that came through Google — consumers simply substituted clicks on the unpaid search listing for the now-absent paid ones.

Encouraged by these findings, eBay management agreed to run a controlled experiment where they shut off all Google search ads in a third of the country, while continuing to buy ads everywhere else. In contrast to branded keywords — where it’s inevitable that the company will end up as one of the top unpaid listings — there’s a good chance that if you try searching for “used les paul guitar,” a guitar reseller will appear ahead of eBay’s search listing. So in order to drive a customer to eBay for his guitar purchase rather than, say, Guitar Center, it might be worth the cost of placing a carefully targeted ad.

But in aggregate, that’s not what the eBay team found — overall, there was no appreciable decline in sales of eBay listings in the part of the country where Google ad purchases were shut off. People who thought to buy guitars via eBay were finding their way to the site anyway, either by clicking on natural listings, or by going directly to eBay’s site without using a search engine at all. Search ads did generate a modest increase in the likelihood that internet surfers with little recent history of eBay transactions would end up making purchases on eBay. So paid search ads serve an informational function, letting a sliver of potential eBay customers know that they’re in the guitar business. But by the time you get to customers who have had three prior eBay transactions in the last year, the effect of paid search on sales drops almost to zero. Overall, paid search turns out to be a very expensive way of attracting new business: The study’s authors estimate that, at least in the short-run, paid ads generate only about 25 cents in extra revenues for each dollar of ad expenditures. (For branded keyword searches, the additional revenues are close to zero.)

People buying search ads aren’t idiots — they’ve looked at the correlation between keyword purchases and subsequent sales and no doubt found it to be strong. But this study suggests that marketing departments should be more careful in confusing causation and correlation in assessing the returns to their ad expenditures, to avoid the equivalent of concluding that marketing works because you advertise and sell a lot in December.

The study’s authors note that paid search may be more profitable for other companies than it’s been for eBay. For example, as Stop and Shop tries to get a foothold in the crowded New York online grocery marketplace, they might sensibly buy some ads to compete with Fresh Direct. Paid search may also be worth it for smaller companies that lack the name recognition and high Google page rank that make paid searches less valuable for the eBays and Amazons of the world — some of Google’s own research indicates that this is likely the case. Caveats aside, eBay’s experiences suggest that all companies should look carefully at how much bang they’re getting for their search marketing dollars.

The larger lesson from eBay’s experiment is about the importance of questioning conventional marketing wisdom. As much as the internet has given companies opportunities to target their ads, it’s also given them a ready testing ground to experiment with different business practices to see what really works.

Article source: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/03/did_ebay_just_prove_that_paid.html

Editor’s Note: Bob has many tips for making the most of Google Analytics. To get more, read Content Marketing with Google Analytics

About the Author

Bob Clary has over eight years of marketing experience. He is currently the Marketing Manager and Google Analytics Trainer at Webucator and is a Google Analytics Qualified Individual. Bob has also created Webucator’s online Google Analytics courses.

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Join Miko and his family for a day at the beach with Auryn’s colorful interactive storybook app, Miko Goes on Vacation. We also have a productivity app that allows you to quickly create and manage lists, and an inspirational reference app.

All app prices are subject to change at any time and without notice regardless of stated free duration. Price changes are solely under the control of the developers.

iPhone:

Tat My Face ($0.99 → Free, 15.7 MB): Freak out your family and friends by slapping a fake tattoo on your face with this photography app. You’re able to import any photo from your library or snap a new on in-app. Then choose the type of tattoo you want and it will automatically be placed in the perfect position on your face. You can also edit your tattoo if need be before sharing it via Facebook, Twitter, or email.

Tat My Face is available for free for a limited time. It has a 5-star rating with a total of 5 ratings.

Leaf Notes ($0.99 → Free, 3.3 MB): A productivity app that allows you to quickly create and manage lists of any kind. Items within lists can be marked off with a tap and rearranged by tapping, holding, and dragging them into place. You’re able to view completed items within a list by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. Tap the title at the top of a list to change its text, choose a new color, or share it via email. You can also reveal all of your lists and color options by swiping left to right.

Leaf Notes is available for free for a limited time. It has a 5-star rating with a total of 22 ratings.

Fling! ($0.99 → Free, 20.2 MB): Fling furballs at other furballs in order to knock all but one off of the screen in this puzzle game. Furballs can’t be flung at adjacent furballs and they can’t just be flung off the screen; they need to be knocked off to be removed. The game includes more than 10,000 puzzles, four modes, hints, undo, and achievements and leaderboards via Game Center.

Fling! is available for free for a limited time. It has a 4-star rating with a total of 41718 ratings.

TinyVox Pro Audio Messenger/Recorder/Transmitter/Voice Memos ($0.99 → Free, 6.8 MB): A powerful voice memo app with a retro look. It allows you to record up to 20 continuous minutes of high quality audio and even type notes during the process. Tapes can also be titled, added to favorites, and trimmed. You can then share your recordings via email, MMS, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, or Soundcloud.

TinyVox Pro Audio Messenger/Recorder/Transmitter/Voice Memos is available for free for a limited time. It has a 4-star rating with a total of 46 ratings.

My laboratory ($0.99 → Free, 6.6 MB): Our world is coming to an end, so it’s up to you to colonize a new planet by mixing elements in this casual game. You start off with only air, earth, fire, and water. Combine the elements in different ways to create new ones, which can eventually be used to create cars, birds, and even humans. You can double-tap on any newly created element to see how it was made. The game includes 200 elements to create, short stories to provide you with clues, and achievements and leaderboards via Game Center.

My laboratory is available for free for a limited time. It has a 4.5-star rating with a total of 23 ratings.

Universal:

Calculator HD Pro – The Best Scientific Calculator for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod ($2.99 → Free, 16.4 MB): A slick calculator app with a dual-line display that provides you with results in real-time. Swipe to reveal the scientific keypad or rotate your iDevice to see all keys at once. You can also swipe down on the display to view, copy, and share your tape. The app includes four themes to choose from, and the ability to add custom labels to calculations on your tape.

Calculator HD Pro – The Best Scientific Calculator for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod is available for free for a limited time. It has a 4.5-star rating with a total of 10 ratings.

Quotes Folder ($1.99 → Free, 13.3 MB): Get inspired with this reference app. It includes more than 15,000 quotes, maxims, and aphorisms to read through and share. Quotes can be searched for by author or keyword, saved as favorites, and shared via email, Facebook, or Twitter. You can also add your own personal quotes and organize them with folders. The app includes four languages, quick access to author info, iCloud support, and a quote of the day option with daily notifications.

Quotes Folder is available for free for a limited time. It has a 4.5-star rating with a total of 261 ratings.

iPad:

Miko Goes on Vacation ($1.99 → Free, 38.7 MB): Tag along with Miko and his family as they head to the beach for a vacation in this colorful interactive children’s storybook. The story centers around Miko and his younger sibling as they make new friends while playing in the sand and water. Your child is able to read on their own or follow along with the narration. They can tap on different items in the scene to hear them pronounced. You can also customize the storybook with your own text and narration.

Miko Goes on Vacation is available for free today only (03/11). It has a 4.5-star rating with a total of 9 ratings.

Geared for iPad ($2.99 → Free, 7.6 MB): This challenging puzzle game requires you to get your brain into gear. Grab gears from the bottom of the screen and place them on the board in order to make the rest of the gears spin. You have a limited amount of gears and space to work with, so plan ahead. The game includes 200 unique levels with varying difficulties, the ability to skip to any level, and awards and rankings.

Geared for iPad is available for free for a limited time. It has a 3-star rating with a total of 4210 ratings.

That concludes today’s issue of Apps Gone Free. If you like staying on top of these daily deals, don’t forget to check out our free AppsGoneFree app. It provides all the deals each day, and even an archive of past deals that are still active.

Developers:

If you are a developer who would like to get your app included in our “Apps Gone Free” daily lists, here’s our basic set of rules:

• It must have at least a three-star average rating at the time it goes free.
• The app must not have been free numerous times (3+) over the last six months.
• The free version of your app must not include ads.

To submit an app, simply send a request to tyler@appadvice.com with the subject “Apps Gone Free.” Please include the name of the app, a link to it in the App Store, when and for how long you intend to offer the app for free, and anything else you would like to share. We will take it from there.

Article source: http://appadvice.com/appnn/2013/03/todays-apps-gone-free-miko-goes-on-vacation-leaf-notes-quotes-folder-and-more

What we identified is this. Query, ‘Funny pets’ has returned different results from ‘hilarious pets’. We also did all kinds of searches—‘humorous pets’, ‘funny animals’, ‘hilarious animals’, ‘ludicrous pets’, ‘silly pets’, etc. Most of the results that Google was able to return contained the specified search term rather than its synonym. Alternately, we can say Google did not handle the synonym scenario well.

Here are some of the images from my search:

Let me tell you a little about this search term ‘funny pets’. It is a very low competition search term, getting about 12,000 searches globally every month. The synonymous words get even fewer searches. Since the search query has low competition and low possibility for marketing, most of the top results do not point to advertisement-type content. In essence, the top results that Google returned were highly relevant to the query.

What we know about a low-competition search query is that it is not being actively pursued by SEOs. Companies find it difficult to market their products by optimizing for those terms. People find it simply unnecessary to optimize for them. As a result, anybody that publishes a website based on that search term can get on top of Google results with the least amount of work.

Also, since the search term doesn’t yield a lot of business growth, the person publishing a website based on that is probably not actively looking to make money. They are doing it out of interest and passion. Hence, what we get is a highly relevant result on top of the SERPs. Since there are multiple web pages that contain the term ‘funny pets’ on their pages, Google returns those results first.

When we looked for ‘hilarious pets’, however, we could find one or two results that had the word ‘funny’ in them, and it was highlighted by Google. This is so with most of the synonym search results.

Let’s look at another example now.

I searched for “achievements by kids” (without quotes of course).

As you can see, Google has highlighted not only ‘kids’ but also ‘children’ in the search results. But in the entire page, there is no synonym for ‘achievement’. In the same way, I searched for ‘children’s accomplishments’ and Google returned results containing ‘kids’ and highlighted that term (kids), but did not come up with any results containing ‘achievements’ or highlight that term even if it appeared in results.

This result points to one assumption. Google probably identifies one of the words in the search queries as the keyword, and finds most feasible synonyms for that. It probably ignores synonyms of other words in the search query and tries to come up with results containing those exact words.

Competitive Search Queries

I went into Google Keywords tool and found a few highly competitive search queries. One of them is ‘cheap auto insurance’. It was highly informative how Google returned the results this time.

On most of the top results, Google highlighted the term ‘car’. It means the search engine identifies ‘car’ as a synonym for ‘auto’. There was also another term ‘low cost’ in the results.

I then searched for ‘low-cost motor insuring packages’. Yes, mixed it up! And yet, you know what? Google came up with all kinds of results containing ‘car’, ‘cheap’, ‘auto’, ‘insurance’, etc.

One thing you should note about competitive keywords is this. They are highly targeted. SEO companies really want to capitalize on these terms and get their clients on top for these search queries. The reason is simple. These search queries lead to high conversions. People are searching for them because they are looking for products to purchase. They will spend money and purchase the product if they are interested.

On the other hand, a person searching for ‘funny pets’ is obviously not going to purchase anything from the resulting website. They are probably not even going to click any ads that show up.

When there are perks, search engine optimizers work really hard in order to gather as many links as possible with synonyms included. This is the reason why Google returns almost the same kind of results even if we use synonyms in search queries for competitive niches.

Conclusion

What we understand is Google is not perfect. It can be played with nicely. It has some level of basic ability to come up with proper search results for searches involving synonyms, but that doesn’t make the search engine perfect. If the niche is highly competitive, you will get to see ad-like results from companies on the top. On the other hand, if the search query is not competitive, you will most likely see very relevant results from people who are actually interested in the topic—just like the people who run myfunnypets.net. You will find some information about how other search engines handle search queries and synonyms in Lenin’s article about the best search engine.

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Article source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-is-your-search-engine-handling-synonyms/60129/

At the heart of Einstein’s FIELD theories, which describe space-time, was his famous formula:

Okay, maybe you’ve never seen that before, but it is famous among theoretical physicists and cosmologists. The lambda, (Λ) is the cosmological constant, which we’ll touch on later in this article. Einstein’s most famous formula is, of course, E = mc2 which describes the conversion of mass to energy, as in that which happens in an atomic explosion.

It took the world of physics years to figure out what Einstein was even talking about, and then even more years for experts to work out whether he was right or wrong. As it turns out, Einstein was more right than wrong.

Google’s Grand Unification Theory Of Devices

In similar fashion, Google turned the world of paid search on its head last month when it unveiled Enhanced Campaigns, which I refer to as their Grand Unification Theory of Devices. Google’s stated purpose in pursuing the Grand Unification Theory is to create a new advertising universe where paid search campaigns are elegant and simplified, and where we can target all devices, bids, time and space from within a single campaign.

This theoretically perfect PPC universe is still young and unproven, but that has not stopped Google from creating it and implementing it before the end of the next fiscal quarter. Of course, they can do that; they’re Google. While Sir Isaac Newton and Dr. Albert Einstein had to content themselves with just describing the world around them, Google can change the way the PPC universe actually works.

Just as Einstein created his elegant equations to describe the grand workings of the cosmos, I thought it would be interesting to take a quick peek into some of the fundamental assumptions that Google must make in order for an Enhanced Campaigns universe to make sense, and express them as simple mathematical formulas.

This new universe operates differently than our current “Legacy” world, and I hope my math logic will help your understanding of what’s fundamentally changed. Making things simple isn’t always so simple, after all.

The Law Of Approximate Device Equivalence (LOAD)

To achieve simplicity and elegance in its new Enhanced campaigns, the first thing Google needed to do was get rid of all that pesky nonsense about campaign ROI performance being different on tablets than on desktop devices. Rubbish. How can anyone create simple campaigns if devices all perform differently?

Unless and until device performance could be proven to be equivalent, it would not be possible. This led to the necessity of inventing a new Law to describe device behavior in the new Enhanced Campaigns Universe, which I’ve named the big new Law of Approximate Device Equivalence, or I prefer to call it, the big LOAD.

Here is my equation that describes it:

According to the big LOAD equation, where rho (ρ), represents advertising performance, and ρ(t) represents performance of Tablets, and ρ(d) represents the performance of Desktop campaigns, Google has simplified the way things work by declaring that desktop and tablet advertising performance are equivalent, or at least close enough so that we need not concern ourselves with optimizing for them anymore.

Now, perhaps you are not a ‘math’ person, but you, as well as many advertisers, doubt that this can possibly be true. Perhaps you “just know” that tablets will perform differently than desktops. You see it for yourself in your everyday life. You see how tablets are replacing favorite magazines as something to browse through as you sit and watch the tele or enjoy a cocktail with your significant other. In the morning, whether traveling or at home, you see how tablets are starting to push newspapers off the breakfast table, and you ‘just know’ this can’t be true.

Or, maybe you are a data person, and claim to have “actual data” that confirms your suspicion about the veracity of Google’s big LOAD. Don’t fret, you are not alone. Even Google has data like this, and publishes it on its website like this:

Google’s own data shows significantly different usage profiles between Tablets and Desktops.

Hmmm, you ask. Shouldn’t Google use its own data to challenge a fundamental assumption of Enhanced Campaigns? Well, let me ask you something. When was the last time you tried to create an online ad system? What? Never? Then don’t question the wisdom of someone who has. And, besides, the big LOAD equation does not work in a Legacy Campaign world, so stop whining and start converting. And don’t laugh, either. After all, didn’t Isaac Newton have to create new math before he could prove his three Laws?

The second controversial, and even more mysterious, aspect of Google’s Grand Unification Theory of Devices is that individual keyword bids on mobile are no longer useful. Instead, mobile bids will now be calculated as a function of desktop keyword bids as explained in this equation:

The Law Of Bidding On Mobile Desktop Devices (BMAD)

Translated, this equation states that your mobile keyword bid amounts will vary as a constant function of your desktop bids:

It no longer matters how your mobile keywords actually perform on mobile devices, what matters now is how your desktop keywords perform on desktop devices.

In olden days, advertisers only had one economic model to apply to AdWords bidding calculations. That model was based on the premise that your keyword bid should be a function of your conversion-rate-performance for that keyword. Now, with BMAD, we have two models. We can use that old model for our desktop device campaigns, and the new BMAD model for mobile keyword bids.

Now, I know you are saying to yourself, “how can it be simpler to employ two models rather than one?” As I said earlier, creating simplicity isn’t all that simple. Does that help? Good. Read on.

To make working under two economic models more simple than working with one, and to make the BMAD economics viable in the first place, Google simply invented the Mobile Bid Adjustment Factor, or BMAF, for short.

The BMAF is a constant, a percentage ranging from -100% to 300% that you can set yourself at the campaign level, which automatically creates your mobile keyword bid as a percentage of your desktop keyword bid. And, to make things even easier, any time you change any of your keyword bids, the BMAD BMAF instantly changes your mobile keyword bids, too. You’re welcome.

Still skeptical? Why, you ask, should mobile bids change every time we change a desktop bid? Why should mobile bids vary based on desktop bids in the first place? These are good questions. Let me get back to you on that.

Did Google Get It Right With Enhanced Campaigns?

Putting aside the shaky assumptions underpinning Google’s new Enhanced Campaigns that I satirized above, the question of the day is: will Enhanced Campaigns work and will advertisers be happy with it? Will Google be happy with it? Will Mobile CPCs rise and improve Google’s net profits?

There are certainly a lot of questions to be asked, and answers to be discovered, and the topic will certainly dominate the blogoshpere for months to come.

We’ve started modeling the expected impact of merging campaigns, and so far, we can find no significant gains or losses in the cutover, and so, we are starting the conversion process for our smaller customers.

Final Thoughts

A few final thoughts and questions about Enhanced Campaigns. Anyone who wants to weigh in, including Googlers, please leave your comments at the end of this article.

First, why didn’t Google first change the way it handles the time of day reporting and accounting for clicks?

I’d have thought this would have been the very first part of any AdWords reorganization. As it stands now, we still have to bid for clicks based on the time zone of the account, rather than the time zone where the click actually occurs. So, for example, If you want to reach people during their lunch hour, it would take 3-5 different campaigns for the US alone.

Some of the exciting new features in Enhanced Campaigns, like geographical bidding and site link scheduling would be much more useful if AdWords campaigns were based on click location.

Second, Google’s Product Managers have learned that handling PR surrounding new platform releases is probably as important as the release itself. I am sure that Google PR teams were embedded with the development teams, because the minute the story broke, there were industry pundits all lined up to say nice things about the changes.

Google strategically ‘leaked’ info to hundreds of major account reps, writers and bloggers so that within minutes of the announcement, the Internet was full of positive spin, which drowned out the negative voices. Well done, Google Product Development and PR teams. I sure hope there is as much steak in this new rollout as there is sizzle.

Well, that’s all that’s on my mind for Enhanced Campaigns this month. Want to give a big shout out to my brother, Bob, for his help with the physics and math stuff. Helps to have a physicist in the family! Please comment below with your own thoughts and ideas on Google’s latest efforts.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: Google: Adwords: Enhanced Campaigns | Paid Search

Article source: http://searchengineland.com/enhanced-campaigns-googles-grand-unification-theory-150374

If you’re like most digital marketers or website owners, you understand how important it is to target your website’s content to valuable SEO keywords – as well as how to use popular keyword research tools like the Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool in order to find the keyword phrases that best suit your particular website.

However, if you only ever pull keyword data from a single research tool, you’re only seeing part of the picture!  Different keyword research tools pull from different search engines – and even those that utilize the same search engine data sets may generate different results based on a number of programming factors.  As most keyword research tools return data on such a limited percentage of the market, using a single service is bound to leave you with an incomplete understanding of your industry’s keyword usage.

To round out your keyword research data set, it’s important that you utilize multiple sources of keyword phrase information.  And if you’ve exhausted the list of popular keyword research programs that are available today, you might be interested in the following five unusual keyword research sources:

Source #1 – Your website’s contact form submissions

If your website uses a “Contact Us” form script, you might be surprised to find a number of potential keywords embedded in the responses you receive from website visitors.

Imagine that your website in the personal security niche received a contact form submission that read:

“Hi there.  I’m interested in learning more about how your personal security service can be used in child custody cases.  Please contact me at your earliest convenience.”

Right away, this response reveals two potential keyword phrases – “personal security service” and “child custody cases.”  Because an individual website visitor already associates these words with your company’s website, it’s likely that future readers will demonstrate a similar affinity for these phrases.  Add them – and any others you find in past contact form submissions – to your keyword research list.

Source #2 – Your industry’s most popular forums

Next up, stop by your industry’s most popular forum and skim through the titles of the hottest threads (that is, those conversations that are receiving the most views or responses).  Chances are you’ll find a wealth of possible keyword ideas that should be added to your research list.

As an example, a recent thread on the popular Warrior Forum website was titled “Best accounting software to manage internet business.”  Though the thread had only been live for a few hours, it had already received more than 100 views – indicating that this subject was of particular interest to the internet marketers who frequent the site.

If you were a website owner catering to this niche, this thread topic could prove particularly useful in that it provides two possible keywords (“best accounting software” and “manage internet business”) – as well as a specific subject that could be utilized in future blog posts on your own site.

Source #3 – Your industry’s listings on eBay

If you’re a retailer of physical products, you’ll definitely want to pay attention to this unexpected keyword source!

To find out what types of keywords potential buyers associate with the products your company sells, head over to eBay and start typing in a few generic seed keywords.  As you type, eBay will automatically generate a list of possible queries that can be hugely valuable in your keyword research process.

As an example, the following screenshot showcases the list of keywords that were displayed in response to the seed keyword “computer parts”:

If you were a retailer in the computer parts industry, any of the options listed above – including “used computer parts,” “scrap computer parts” and “desktop computer parts” – could all prove to be great fodder for your keyword research process.

Source #4 – Your competitors’ “best post” lists

On the other hand, if you run a blog – rather than a physical product retailer – you likely won’t find any possible keywords in this way.  But you can find them by searching out “best post” lists in your industry…

Often – especially at the end of calendar years – popular blogs will release “round-ups” of their most viewed posts over a given time period.  Not only can these post offer useful resources for improving your own business, they can also be a powerful source of potential keyword ideas!

As an example, imagine that you run a blog in the tech industry.  There are plenty of notable blogs in this field, including plenty that regularly release data on their most popular posts.  Chances are you already know some of these sites off the top of your head, but if you need assistance finding best post lists, enter the following query into Google:

“[your niche] best posts of [most recent year]”

For even better results, add the word “traffic” to your query, as many of these best post lists report the specific number of visitors each article received.  Then, once you’ve located a few post lists, analyze the articles linked to from each list and try to determine whether the content is targeting a particular keyword.  If so (as demonstrated by the presence of the same phrase in the title, headline tags and/or body content), you’ve got a new keyword phrase that can be added to your research list!

Source #5 – Your company’s receptionist

One final unexpected keyword research source is your company’s receptionist (or any other customer service employee who takes incoming phone calls for your business).

If that sounds strange, think about the first thing that receptionists hear.  After offering your company’s greeting, most receptionists hear something to the effect of, “Hi – I’m calling about your lawn mowing service,” or “Hey there – could you tell me more about your current hair styling tool sale?”

Both of these examples involve industry-specific keyword phrases (“lawn mowing service” and “hair styling tool sale”) that could represent major SEO opportunities for your company.  As with the contact form submission source listed above, keywords generated in this manner can be especially powerful, as you already know that your customers recognize them and associate them with your brand.

Obviously, you won’t be able to use this source if you don’t employ any customer-facing staff members.  But if you do, this can be an incredibly powerful way to generate additional keywords to research outside of the same standard tools that all of your competitors are using.

Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that these sources represent keyword research opportunities only.  Just because you’ve generated possible keyword ideas using these sources doesn’t mean that their overall search volume or relative competitiveness represent a good fit for your company.  Following the example above, just because a potential customer used the phrase “lawn mowing service” in a call to your company doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea for your business to go after this keyword!

Instead, use these unexpected sources for idea generation only.  Once you’ve compiled a new list of potential keywords, run these phrases through the same filters you’d apply to any other set of keywords you’ve compiled in order to make sure you’re targeting the right queries.  In addition, make sure to vary your techniques, as relying on a single source of keyword ideas is a sure-fire way to miss out on great opportunities within your niche.

Yes, all of these different processes involve more work than simply running your favorite keyword research tool, but the results will definitely be worth it.  With just a little extra effort, it’s possible to uncover great ranking opportunities that your competitors are missing out on – just by expanding the number of sources you draw on for keyword ideas.

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Article source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/5-unexpected-keyword-research-sources/60735/

Barre Players has poured its heart and soul into Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s seemingly omnipresent “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and make no mistake about it, the Saturday evening performance was a blockbuster.

What director Joel D. Seger has put together is a raw, intense, moving, darkly humorous, splashy, visually resplendent experience that stirs the viscera.

Its imperfections only seem to amplify its core honesty and conviction, and best of all, Brett Ouimette’s Jesus is hardly the often banal, impassively sanctimonious figure that can mar the show. He’s full of seething, questioning, anger and uncertainty in the “Gethsemane (I Only Want To Say)” number, his voice cracking and shrieking with torment and doubt.

And thank God (appropriately) for that, because it gives balance to a work that is almost always a showcase for the actor playing Judas, who usually steals Jesus’ thunder with his own bruised emotions.

That’s not to say James Casey isn’t mercurial in his marvelously athletic portrayal of Judas Iscariot. Despite a recent bout with the flu that has mitigated the full power of his voice, Casey seared the Barre Players Theater with anguish on “Heaven on Their Minds,” “Damned For All Time,” “The Arrest,” “Judas Death” and “Superstar.”

There’s more than one way to interpret the dynamics among the major characters in “Jesus Christ Superstar,” the most notable notion being that Judas regards himself as a spurned lover. How else to regard his agonized recapitulation of Mary Magdalene’s (Katherine Kendrick) “I Don’t Know How To Love Him”?

Let the debate begin on that one, but there’s no debate that Judas is the true tragic figure of the show, or that Casey’s brooding love/hate intensity successfully encompasses a complicated mix of jealousy and spiritual skepticism. He’s a sulking buddy figure who’s upset that he can’t have Jesus all to himself, pushing away and slapping at Magdalene at every opportunity.

Kendrick’s Magdalene is both a soothing presence and a fiercely protective one. Her rendition of “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” isn’t your usual stationary, “hold Jesus’ head in my lap” musical soliloquy. She moves fretfully around the stage in a ballet of piercing doubt, supported nicely by Jonghum Kim’s musical direction, trying to process Magdalene’s emotions with contemplative understatement.

“Doubt” is the key word here, because it could easily be the subtitle of the work. All the key figures are torn by doubt, including Ron Stone’s ruminative, dynamic take on Pontius Pilate.

In a production that pulls out every eclectic stop on costuming, Stone struts around imperiously on stage dressed in an SS uniform, the Nazi touch harmonious with the might of ancient Rome.

He really doesn’t want to put this man called Jesus to death, doubting that he’s the threat to the status quo insisted on by Caiaphas (Richard T. Bennett), Annas (Greg Davis), and the Priest (Evan Lalos). But doubt boils over to the misplaced anger of the 39 lashes given to Jesus on “Trial Before Pilate,” a scene that is staged with the brute force of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” minus the copious bloodletting. Still, Ouimette writhes with impressive, tearful agony, covered with red blotches of makeup that almost make you wince.

One feels this sense of total commitment throughout the production. “The Temple” is staged like a hedonistic party, as if Cecil B. DeMille had been given the opportunity to direct a Britney Spears video, the ensemble dressed to the nines in glittering decadence, until Ouimette barges in and crashes it with furious admonishment.

Christine C. Seger’s choreography displays crisply executed flair on “Hosanna” and “King Herod’s Song,” the latter showcasing Joseph Godfrey’s cynically funny King Herod.

The show’s counterculture roots will always be evident, no matter how it’s staged. There’s no escaping Webber and Rice’s intent to connect their iconoclastic New Testament subject matter to late ‘60s/early ‘70s anti-establishment sensibility.

Some may argue that it’s dated, but Seger’s treatment of it should make you think otherwise. His imposing set is an austere stone palace right out of George Stevens’ “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” His costumes are an extravagant compendium of neo-hippie peasant, high priest Goth, Vegas showgirl, and military camouflage. Riot helmets and Roman soldier shields are de rigueur for the police squads sent to dispel Jesus’ followers.

By combining antiquity with modernity, Seger has made “Jesus Christ Superstar” relevant for all times.

It isn’t easy being a messiah, no matter what the time and place, as this production powerfully points out.

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Article source: http://www.telegram.com/article/20130311/NEWS/103119974/1312

The key to SEO success is to have a plan of action, so I’ve put together five steps you can implement for your business website that, if followed consistently, will bring results. I’m also looking to make sure you have a better understanding of the things that you can do in-house to improve the performance of your website.

1. Don’t guess, do your keyword research

To improve your website traffic, you need to help search engines understand what your web pages are relevant for. For this, we use keywords, which are the short string of words (maybe one, two, three words) that a person types into the search box of a search engine. For example, if you look for a web design company you may type “web design Lincoln” into Google, and that phrase is the keyword. By using Google’s free Keyword Tool you can get an idea of what people are searching for within your niche.

Search engines give users two kinds of results: organic, results that most closely match the search query, also known as natural results; and paid results, which usually appear highlighted at the top of the page. Depending on the keyword, around 50% of users click the first organic result of a search, with the rest split between the paid results and other natural results.

You’re looking for the search terms that are less competitive but have respectable search volumes. You don’t have to always target the most popular search terms. It’s about choosing logically and not always gunning for the most popular search terms. I’ve written more about researching keywords on my website.

2. Keep your pages focused

From the research above, you should now have a list of keywords for each page. Now, choose one or two focus keyword(s), but no more than that. Remember, this is all about focus and making it crystal clear to both your reader and search engine what your page is all about.

Once you have your focus keywords identified, log into your content management system admin area and start changing the following areas to increase that relevancy of your page. There are a range of plugins for each content management system, if you use WordPress as an example then I recommend the SEO Yoast plugin.

• Meta page titles: this is the blue title seen in the search engine, keep this less than 65 characters and go for this format [Keyword One, Keyword Two, Brand].
• Meta page description: this is the short description seen in the search engine, under the page title. It helps the user decide which listing to click on. Keep these less than 160 characters.
• Content headers: Put your keywords within your content headers, and use the Header 1 or H1 style from your text editor options.
• Content text: Within your content, make sure you work your keyword in seamlessly. You ideally want to mention the keyword 4 times, so it would be good to include them within 200 words to avoid “stuffing”.
• Images: If you’re using images, make sure you give them a clear title and fill in the ALT field. It adds another string to the bow to help the search engine understand what the page and its data are relevant for.

3. Amplify your message

So, you’ve got this great website with all this really useful content – while waiting for the search engines to do their bit, you need it to be seen. You need to proactively draw attention to your site with the aim of getting linked to in order to build its authority and trust to help overall rankings.

You can start by being social. Share your blog posts within all your social networks and engage with those who respond. Also, be proactive and interact with those who are talking about your niche and offer a helping hand by referring them back to the most suitable and helpful content within your website.

Emails and newsletters still have their place – but you have to be clever with your techniques, content and selective about whom you send it to. Think about the message you’re trying to get across, don’t send it to everyone – just those who will benefit from knowing. This way you increase the likeliness of click-troughs as well as sustained subscriber numbers. Using a self-service like Mailchimp you can send some emails for free and then use their reporting tools to measure the success.

4. Encourage visits to your site

If you have something newsworthy, then you could use a press release to draw attention to your business. For example you may have moved or developed new premises, you may have just won an award for your work, or you may be holding a unique event that you want to talk about. Whatever you write about, make sure you have a detailed account of it on your website (normally within your blog). From this write and send a unique, summarised and snappy overview to carefully targeted bloggers and journalists from within your niche. If they feel it will be of value to their readers then there’s a good chance they will want to publish it on their sites. There’s certainly a skill to writing and managing a press release, but you can give it a go by using a service like PRWeb.

5. Comment marketing

This can be a great little trick – if you’re consistent with it, Go find a few forums that cover topics within your niche (look at UK Business Forums for a start) and then find things that you feel you can contribute to. If you have content published on your site around a specific question already, you can always refer people to it. This technique can also be used within LinkedIn discussion groups. Just don’t be too self promotional and make sure you offer genuine advice.

When marketing your website, the goal is to increase the relevance of each page and then build your sites trust and authority within your niche. Being consistent and focussed with this plan will give a lot of positive signals to the search engines that will help your traffic increase, as well as your background rankings.

Article source: http://thelincolnite.co.uk/2013/03/5-techniques-to-improve-your-seo-and-website-traffic/

I was taught in school that the most commonly used letter in the English language is “e” and the word most often spoken or written is “the”. However, from what I learned in the real world I must disagree. Actually, “eff” is the most basic, essential, keyword _ employed as noun, verb, adverb, adjective.

The Life by Martina Cole, 502 pp, 2012 Headline paperback. Available at Asia Books and leading book shops, 450 baht.

A paragraph is certain to contain several, a sentence at least one. More than a few words are broken in half, “eff” inserted in between. Cultured people aren’t expected to use it, but they do. Its primacy as an epithet is curious because all living things mate to reproduce and/or to enjoy it.

Men and women implying that they want to mate with you is flattering rather than otherwise. And the impossibility of mating with yourself makes it worth a laugh. I’d say “Go pick your nose!” comes closer to the meaning intended, but I don’t think it will catch on. It looks like “eff” will be around for some time to come.

Taking a leaf from Mario Puzo’s classic The Godfather, Britain’s Martina Cole has found her literary niche penning stories about one or another of London’s crime families. Not the Mafia, but fictitious, combining her imagination with known facts. Her emphasis is the women of the families.

There is a sameness to her 25 novels to date. The women, generally Irish and innocent when wed, learn that their husbands are hard men and watch with sinking hearts as their sons follow in their father’s footsteps. That is once again the theme of The Life.

The gimmick here is that the grandmother was seduced by a black man and her offspring as well as theirs are dark-skinned, and some are marginally lighter-skinned. As usual with the author’s previous works, through violence they take over the underworld of The Smoke. The women’s feelings ignored, members of the Bailey family are killed by their own when they “eff up”.

This reviewer lost track of the number of times Cole uses “eff” in its variations here. Remove them and the length of the story would be reduced from 500 pages to little more than 300. Not that the author overdoes it.

The censors have long since abandoned the field. It’s “eff” this and “eff” that in the arts _ books, films, plays, songs. There are an estimated 600,000 words in the English language _ ever tried to lift a Webster’s Unabridged or Oxford dictionary? _ and most of us know hardly 1% of them. “Eff” users reduce even this number. At least they spell it correctly.

The Tombs by Clive Cussler, 374 pp, 2012 Michael Joseph paperback. Available at Asia Books and leading book shops, 695 baht.

In search of Attila

There are treasure hunters and there are artefact hunters, different objectives that tend to overlap. Yank Clive Cussler hunts ships sunk in bygone times _ millennia, centuries, decades ago. Occasionally he searches on land for burial places of historical personages and lost cities.

Any treasure found is not kept, but handed over to the appropriate authorities. (Presumably, he doesn’t turn down a finder’s fee.) Then he writes a book about it, on his own or with a co-author, non-fiction or a novel. He’s been at it a while, there are 50 books to date. All are top-grade adventure thrillers.

The author’s literary creations include various protagonists, and Dirk Pitt is the most popular. Each hero is different, yet somewhat the same _ intrepid, resourceful, ready to punch or shoot if need be. The villains either die or slink away twirling their moustache: “Curses. Foiled again!”

In The Tombs the search is for Attila’s tomb. Attila. Remember him? 406CE-453CE (Cussler replaces AD _ Anno Domini _ with CE _ Christian Era. Same difference). The King of the Huns, he led them from beyond the Urals into eastern France and northern Italy.

Overrun tribes and kingdoms were given the choice of joining him or being massacred. To those who resisted, he showed no mercy. Those who opted to be absorbed had their cities looted. Byzantium paid substantial annual tribute to defer his wrath. Why he didn’t sack Rome and the cause of his death at 47 are matters of conjecture.

Sea and land hunters Sam and Remi Fargo are asked by their friend, a German professor of archaeology, to assist in locating Attila’s tomb. If Cussler is to be believed, the scourge of civilisation needed five tombs to hold his immense wealth in gold, silver, jewels et al. Every tomb has a coded message about the others.

As in Raiders Of The Lost Ark there are villainous anthropologists after the treasure out of greed, at one point kidnapping Remi. Their competition takes them to France, Italy, Hungary, Romania and Kazakhstan. The penultimate climax is in La Jolla, California. The Hungarian, French and Russian culprits storm the Fargo fortress-like home as Attila would have done it if he had modern weapons.

Best about The Tombs are the many historical facts about the Huns. I read elsewhere Attila choked to death in his sleep after a feast. Cussler has it he was poisoned by a Roman scribe. It leaves me wondering. As for not invading Rome, there was famine and a malaria epidemic he wanted no part of.

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Writer: Bernard Trink
Position: Freelance Writer

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Try buying selling goods and properties 24/7 in our classifieds which has high purchasing power local expatriate audience from within Thailand and around the world.

Article source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/arts-and-culture/book/339823/that-word-again

Does When You File Your 1040 Affect Your Audit Risk?

Robert W. Wood
Contributor

Shhh, Home Office And Other IRS Audit Trigger Secrets

Robert W. Wood
Contributor

Filing Your Taxes? 4 Key Facts About IRS Form 1099

Robert W. Wood
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The Forbes 2013 Tax Guide

Janet Novack
Forbes Staff

You should never throw out your old tax returns. Keep a copy forever. If the IRS statute of limitations has expired (3 or 6 years depending on the issue), you may be able to discard your receipts and work-papers. But tax returns themselves? Keep them forever.

Unfortunately, returns may be mislaid, lost or destroyed. There are fires, floods, and other mishaps, as well as plain old poor record-keeping. The IRS has heard every excuse in the book. See IRS Publication 552, Recordkeeping for Individuals. If somehow you don’t have an old tax return and need it, you can ask the IRS. 

If the IRS doesn’t have a copy of your return, you still may be able to get a “transcript” from the IRS of all the key numbers. Here’s how.

• Order a Transcript
• Form 4506-T-EZD, Short Form Request for Individual Tax Return Transcript
• Form 4506-T, Request for Transcript of Tax Return
• Form 4506, Request for Copy of Tax Form

Transcripts are free for the current and past three years. A tax return transcript shows most line items from your tax return as filed including accompanying forms and schedules. It does not reflect changes made after the return was filed. A tax account transcript shows any later adjustments you or the IRS made after you filed. This transcript shows basic data including marital status, type of return filed, adjusted gross income and taxable income.

To request either type, go to IRS.gov and use the Order a Transcript tool. To order by phone, call 800-908-9946 and follow the prompts. To request a 1040, 1040A or 1040EZ tax return transcript through the mail, complete IRS Form 4506T-EZ. Businesses, partnerships and individuals who need information from other forms or need a tax account transcript must use Form 4506-T.

If you need a copy of a previously filed tax return it costs $57 for each year. Complete Form 4506 and mail it to the IRS address listed on the form for your area. Copies are generally available for the current year and past six years. The fee for copies of tax returns may be waived if you are in an area declared a federal disaster area. Visit IRS.gov, keyword “disaster,” for more guidance on disaster relief.

YouTube Video How to Request a Copy Your Tax Return: English | Spanish | ASL

Robert W. Wood practices law with Wood LLP, in San Francisco. The author of more than 30 books, including Taxation of Damage Awards Settlement Payments (4th Ed. 2009 with 2012 Supplement, Tax Institute), he can be reached at Wood@WoodLLP.com. This discussion is not intended as legal advice, and cannot be relied upon for any purpose without the services of a qualified professional.

Article source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/03/10/missing-tax-data-get-a-free-irs-transcript-to-untangle-the-mess/