Recent Online Marketing Posts

Welcome to our blog about online marketing.

Foursquare Yelps over Check-in Feature Knockoff

Foursqure co-founder Dennis Crowley wasn’t too happy with the rather blatant ripoff by Yelp of its check-in feature. Yelp vs. Foursquare could be an interesting battle over local online advertising dollars.

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Written by Ryan on January 26, 2010

Trust Marketing

Advertise. Market. Spam. Promote. Sell. Messaging. Script. Cajole. Spam. Lie. These are all words people think of when they think of marketing. It’s time to put “trust” on the list.

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Written by Ryan on January 10, 2010

Effective Social Media Marketing

Surely you’ve heard that social media marketing is a mind-blowing, revolutionary game-changer. But what on earth does that mean? Take a look at one business owner who is actually using Twitter successfully.

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Written by Ryan on December 10, 2009

We Will Not Tone it Down Ad Campaign: Stupid or Krafty?

I can’t decide if Miracle Whip’s “We Will Not Tone it Down” campaign is the stupidest or most brilliant Gen Y ad campaign ever.

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Written by Ryan on November 16, 2009

New Media vs Old Media

I heard a rather silly debate on NPR about whether the evolution of media was a good thing or not. It was called “Good Riddance to Old Media.”

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Written by Ryan on November 6, 2009

SEO and Social Media Synergy

How can you use Social Media for SEO? Effective internet marketing techniques leverage several online platforms simultaneously to distribute content. This is a good example of how Gab Goldenberg took advantage of various social media platforms to get exposure for his article and pick up a few links for SEO.

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Written by Ryan on November 2, 2009

2009 Ad Tech Speakers On Twitter

Wouldn’t it be nice to see a list of all the speakers at Ad Tech with their Twitter handles? Here is the list.

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Written by Ryan on October 5, 2009

Just What is Merchant Circle?

Is merchant circle a useful site for consumers or an advertising channel for businesses? It turns out it’s neither.

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Written by Ryan on September 29, 2009

Brands in Public Smells Like Merchant Circle

Seth Godin’s newest venture “Brands in Public” is leaving a lot of people wondering if that bald head of his has been exposed to too much sun.

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Written by Ryan on September 25, 2009

Spamming Google in 3 Easy Steps

Admit it. You want to get to the top of Google and you really don’t want to do much work. I did just that in 15 minutes. I managed to serve up some nice Spam to Google. See the results.

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Written by Ryan on September 9, 2009

Top 10 Reasons I Absolutely Despise Top 10 Lists

Is this the greatest Top 10 list of all time? There is only one way to find out.

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Written by Ryan on August 26, 2009

Top 10 Ways to Manage Internet Marketing Risk

Do you want to know with 100% certainty if your marketing technique will work BEFORE you do it? Well so do I so when you figure that out please let me know. Until then, there are a few things to keep in mind no matter what marketing endeavor you are taking.

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Written by Ryan on August 14, 2009

The Cost of Free Online Marketing

FREE. FREE. FREE. That seems to be all you hear about when it comes to the internet. Are people getting free marketing online? We don’t want to spoil the ending, but the answer is no.

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Written by Ryan on July 26, 2009

The Folly of an Interactive Marketing Forecast

Forecasting the growth of internet marketing is a pretty crazy task to take on, but that didn’t stop Forrester Research. While the fortune telling doesn’t provide much value, the 2009 numbers do show that interactive marketing is very real.

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Written by Ryan on July 14, 2009

How to Improve Quality Score in 10 Steps

Ok quick and easy it is not, but here are a few ways to improve quality score and get cheaper clicks and better positioning on Google’s sponsored search.

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Written by Ryan on July 3, 2009

TripAdvisor Tripped up on Fake Reviews

How many of TripAdvisor.com’s reviews are fake? It’s hard to say, but there is enough monkey business going on that TripAdvisor feels compelled to slap a warning label on selected reviews.

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Written by Ryan on June 14, 2009

The Internet: The Silver Bullet Marketing Solution?

Do you want to have your marketing message “blasted into cyberspace”? If so I suspect you are thinking about marketing on the internet in the wrong way. The web doesn’t work quite like traditional marketing channels do and before you spend a bunch of money there are several things to consider.

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Written by Ryan on June 10, 2009

The Problem with Old Business People on Twitter

If you are using Twitter or thinking about using Twitter for business purposes, take a quick look around the twittersphere. Who conducts business well and who is making themselves look pretty foolish?

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Written by Ryan on June 9, 2009

Where Did the Door-to-Door Sales Guy Go?

Have we got a deal for you! I was watching a rerun of Madmen the other day, which is a show set in the 1960s. In one episode a door-to-door air conditioning salesman invited himself in to Betty Draper’s house and it got me thinking about the demise of the door-to-door salesmen.

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Written by Ryan on June 8, 2009

Building a Travel Brand Online

Building a brand online shares a lot of commonalities with building a brand in the traditional sense, but there are important considerations to make.

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Written by Paul on May 28, 2009

The Future of Quality Score & Pay Per Click

Google makes money, a lot of money. Most people are familiar with Google because of their free search, but the core of their financial success is Pay Per Click advertising.

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Written by Ryan on May 26, 2009

Travel Website Credibility

Credibility goes a long way to making a sales in any business. This is especially true of travel websites. But what do people look for? Here is what the fine folks at Stanford have found.

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Written by Ryan on May 22, 2009

Social Media is Having an Impact on Business

The explosion of social media has been nothing short of amazing. Facebook has 200 million users and growing and Twitter is in the news all the time. But what does social media mean for business?

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Written by Ryan on May 5, 2009

RMG’s Ryan Evans Chicagoland Webmaster Presentation

Ryan presents some of the trends and opportunities for online marketing in 2009 to the Chicagoland Webmasters Group. Ryan touches on the growing complexity of quality score and the importance of a well-run pay per click campaign.

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Written by Paul on April 27, 2009

Uncertainty of SEO Return on Investment

Advertising ROI
Return on Investment (ROI) is the lifeblood of any advertising effort. Even if return can’t be directly measured, getting the greatest return with the least amount of money invested is always the name of the game.
Online marketing has exploded simply because the return can be huge while the investment is relatively low. An added [...]

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Written by Paul on April 14, 2009

Email Marketing For Travel and Tourism

In the online marketer’s quest for the latest technology or innovation, a very basic tactic is overlooked. Done the right way, an email campaign can produce an impressive ROI and provide long term benefits.

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Written by Paul on March 13, 2009

New York Times Travel Show - 2009

A few of us from Rand Media Group attended the 2009 New York Times travel show this year. We talked to a number of exhibitors and found a somewhat optimistic crowd despite the tepid travel economy. It was interesting to learn what people were doing (or not doing) online.

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Written by Ryan on March 7, 2009

Pay Per Click Reigns Supreme in Tough Economic Times

Pay Per Click (PPC) will likely weather any economic downturn very well. PPC has built in accountability and flexibility. Advertisers may cut back on general branding efforts, but PPC should hold up.

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Written by Paul on February 26, 2009

Practical Online Marketing

I want to give a big thank you for Deborah Hall and everyone at the NAER conference. I had a great time presenting and really enjoyed the group. I have put together some videos of the presentation as well as a few other videos and resources that I thought would be useful. If anyone [...]

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Written by Paul on February 7, 2009

An SEO Guide to the Apocalypse

What If Google was Gone?
Anyone who thinks about online marketing knows the importance of dominating the search engines, especially google. The ironic thing about this is that building a website as if google didn’t exist is actually the best way to optimize your site for google.
So let’s assume that google disappeared. Assume for second that [...]

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Written by Ryan on January 19, 2009

What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

You may have heard people through around the term SEM or Search Engine Marketing a lot, but what is it? Search Engine Marketing is a fantastic way to grab new business online.

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Written by Paul on December 18, 2008

Organizing Website Content

Are you reading this? Would you have read this sentence is it was buried within a Tolstoy-length blog post? Probably not. People interact with information much differently online.

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Written by Ryan on December 3, 2008

Using PHP for PPC (Pay Per Click)

There are people who love PHP and there are people who love PPC. Mixing the two can be a great combination for giving visitors a custom feel after the click.

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Written by Ryan on October 7, 2008