Owner: Startup Hustle URL:http://www.startuphustle.com/ Join Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 09:43:45 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Startup Hustle was created to help with small business marketing and guerrilla marketing in the startup world. Site statistics:Click here
When AdPreview Saves Your Life (An Adwords Tale) 2007-09-07 08:54:05 The other day I got a call from the CEO and Founder of a company I work for asking why his main keywords, which are usually in positions 2-4, were either at the bottom of the first page or not on the page at all. As I run through the possible reasons in my head, I jump over to Adwords
to see where Google says the keywords are positioned. Adwords says the keywords are in positions…..2 to 4, exactly where they should be.
So….Google tells me the keywords are exactly where I want them, but the keywords are showing much lower in the search results, which is what the CEO is looking at.
Who do you think he believes me or his own eyes?
After researching the issue (aka…franticly calling my Google rep), I learn if you search a particular keyword continuously in Google and don’t click any of the ads, Google assumes those ads are not relevant to your search. Google adjusts the ads (bringing lower ads to the top) to find an ad that might interest you, thus lowerin Read more:Saves
Adwords Secret Negative Keyword Tool…..Sort of. 2007-08-14 09:06:36 Google Adwords
recently released a new report called “Search Query Report”. This report will show you which search terms prompted your ad to show (an impression). The report gives you the complete statistics for that keyword (clicks, conversions ect.). Google provided this report so that advertisers could find new keywords to bid on. Being the PPC pro that I am (wink), the report did not find any new keywords that would be beneficial to my campaigns; it actually had the opposite effect.
The “Search Query Report” is better to find negative keywords, than new keywords to bid on.
Actually, to Googles credit, this is the best negative keywords tool that I have ever seen. Since the report is directly connected to your Adwords campaign, it will tell you exactly which keywords are wasting impressions and clicks (= $$$$$$$).
I’m sure the report works well for others that are looking to add more relevant keywords. In a time where Google is trying to make Adwo Read more:Negative
, Keyword
Because Google was not Making Enough Money 2007-08-13 11:32:32 Google’s new algorithm change to Adwords is simply a way to make more money. That’s it. Don’t think it will really improve the quality. There is no way that adding a part to the algorithm that favors those that spent the most money is going to improve quality.
Who will this hurt most? Small businesses that can compete against big businesses because of quality.
Here is a great breakdown from SEOMOZ:
“This is a very smart move in terms of Google’s potential revenue and the impact this change will have on business bidding behavior:
Supply is limited to 1-3 positions above the organic results.
Business owners who see their competitors take the top positions will want to out-bid that person by raising their maximum bid, thereby gaining control of the top position.
The ripple effect of one competitor raising their bid is tremendous, especially with the bid management software and bid management companies available today - somebody is keeping an eye on Read more:Google
, Money
, Enough
Getting Indexed by Google can Suck 2007-07-17 20:37:23 You spend months, maybe even years trying to get onto the front page of Google
or Yahoo so people can find you. Now both search engines are to a point where new content is indexed relatively quickly, especially if you have already gained a positive reputation with their algorithms. So what is the downfall of being well indexed in the search engines?
Publishing pages that you, or worse your members, don’t want to be found.
I have noticed two instances of this occurring. Either you publish content that needs to be removed due to writing something controversial (when you’re not trying to be) or just being inaccurate. Or, members search their name, find their profile and want it deleted. The latter is what I have to deal with on a daily basis. Unfortunately members don’t understand that websites don’t have control over how long Google or Yahoo cache web pages.
How do you correctly a cache issue?
Google provides a tag that you can place at the head of the Read more:Indexed
When did Facebook and LinkedIn become competitors? 2007-07-10 16:42:04
I never really saw Facebook
as a competitor of LinkedIn
. Facebook is a social network for college kids and LinkedIn is a business oriented network. So Facebook opened up to everyone…big deal….LinkedIn had 9 million members that are there for business.
Why is Facebook the new business network for the Silicon community?
Maybe everyone really likes Mark Zuckerberg? Or Facebook has better business networking tools? One issue might be the change in the LinkedIn population. Try and go 2 hours without getting a request to connect from a professional recruiter. LinkedIn has turned into a living, breathing Monster (Jobs…get it?). You (like me) are probably not there to become connected to 500 recrutiers. Can someone tell me why Facebook has become preferred over LinkedIn in the Valley?
As a startup, which is better, LinkedIn or Facebook?
It depends on what your trying to achieve. LinkedIn Answers is a good product to spark a conversation and interest in your product or se
Yahoo Finally Takes a Jump 2007-07-03 09:13:37 As Yahoo
has been following in Google’s search advertising footsteps, they have been falling further and further behind. The only way to catch Google is to be the first to market with innovative search ad technologies. Yahoo just released a new product called SmartAds….well, it is neither a new technology or the first to market in the search space, but they did beat Google.
SmartAds is the equivalent to behavioral marketing in the search arena. There are a few companies that already do this but they do not have Yahoo’s user base. This is good for small business advertisers because it is a very targeted technique and it should cost less than running ads on Adwords. We will have to wait to see if it is as effective.
Read more:Finally
HitTail Power Play? 2007-06-29 14:16:43 I love HitTail. It is a fantastic SEO tool and the best part….it is free. If you dont know what HitTail is, it is a web based program that will tell you which search terms lead to your site and keep track of the long tail for you. It also has a live section that will show you which websites lead a user to your site (it updates live as a link it clicked that lands on your site).
The free version is limited to 100,000 visits per month. So, conventional thinking would lead you to believe that once you hit that limit, HitTail would stop tracking for the rest of that month and restart next month….oh no. If you hit the limit you either have to upgrade to the $50 a month package or they will end the use of the service for you. Here is an email I got from them today:
“You are among our customers whose traffic volume exceeds the limit for free service, which is 100,000 visits per month. Therefore, we kindly ask you to pick a premium plan for high-volume sites and upgrade you
Google and Paid Content Transparency 2007-06-26 13:00:02 I spent the morning going through Google
’s new Placement Performance Report which show you where your content ads are displayed (Adsense). I just read a blog article over at the PPC Book that described exactly how I felt. A large number of the poor performing sites are not disclosed but are show as “Domain Ads”. Some of the most clicked URL’s that don’t convert fall under “Domain Ads” (surprise, surprise). Since Google does not show you the domain, you can not block the domain in the campaign setting.
So the entire reason to produce a Placement Performance Report is transparency, but they hide URL’s ….makes sense.
Read more:Content
, Transparency
New CrazyEgg Feature 2007-06-19 15:28:19 I wrote a post last week about using CrazyEgg to analyze landing page performance. Techcrunch broke the story that CrazyEgg has a new feature called “Confetti”. The new feature will pinpoint exactly where a user clicked and feeds you where they came from, their OS, screen size, browser and time before clicking. It is another feature that makes CrazyEgg a great (free) product.
Now this is how you Linkbait! 2007-06-18 16:52:57 There is a good discussion over on yCombinator about a guy that went to the Ebay Sellers Conference this past weekend and wore a Google shirt, which he claims led to him being thrown out. If you missed the story, Google wanted to throw an event for Google Checkout to compete with Paypal (owned by Ebay) at Ebay’s conference. So Ebay stopped all of their Adwords campaigns and Google backed down.
So this guy was at the conference to pitch his product to Ebay sellers when his Google apparel caught the attention of Ebay marketing executives, who apparently intimated him to the point that he left (escorted by security).
Regardless if the story is true or false (better if true) this was a great way to create linkbait in this tough linkbait time.
When to Submit to a Social News Site 2007-09-25 12:57:22 By “when” I mean down to the hour of the day. It can make a big difference considering the two largest population regions in America are separated by 3 hours. You also have to consider the day of the week.
Posting a great, compelling (linkbait?) article is most often the best way to drive traffic to your site using social news. You put in all the hard work of an eye catching title, detailed and researched articles, and then comes the traffic. You submit your article and nothing happens. It slips quickly through the newly submitted postings and in 15 minutes the hope has died. Then you question your article (which you should). Was the title wrong? Was the article too long? One often overlooked question is…..
Did you ever consider the timing when submitting to a social news site?
Working with a group of connected Digg users in the top 100, they recommend to submit articles at 2:00pm eastern standard time. Do remember, submitting to Digg has become a game of who you k Read more:Submit
, Social
Testing BlogRush 2007-09-21 03:10:05 Startup Hustle has added the BlogRush widget. There has been a ton of buzz about the widget with early reports giving it less than stellar results, but we are interested regardless. This is how BlogRush works:
“By adding the BlogRush Widget to a blog, a blogger can get instant distribution for their latest blog post titles across a network of related blogs.
BlogRush users earn “syndication credits” (the right to have their blog post titles shown inside a widget on another related blog) based on their own traffic (loads of the widget) as well as the traffic of other users they refer to BlogRush. Users can automatically refer others to BlogRush via special links on the widget, as well as through the promotion of a special referral URL they are given.
BlogRush is a “Cooperative Syndication Network” that rewards its users for their contributions to the network — from the impressions they provide of the BlogRush Widget to the referral of other users throu Read more:Testing
Need Press but Outside the Valley? 2007-09-19 08:49:21
Many startups are located outside Silicon Valley
(Austin, Boston, New York, Seattle) and have trouble getting press. The majority of the startup media is located in the Valley and likes to talk about…..the Valley. A growing startup needs all the press and mentions they can get, so take advantage of your “exotic” location by submitting your venture to Outside
the Valley.
Outside the Valley is a blog that scores startups to determine the success without the help of the Silicon network. Here are the categories a startup will be scored by:
Outside the Valley Score
Location: City, ST = 3
Founders: Experienced = 1
Technology:Some new technology = 1
Funding: Principals and a few private investors = 2
Total Score – 7.0 Definitely outside the valley……
While not scientific, the whole concept is quite interesting. Connections to Silicon Valley as a negative while everyone is trying to establish themselves with the Valley media. My metaphoric hat is off to you Read more:Press
Will Gatineau Challenge Google Anayltics? 2007-09-17 09:14:22
As new screen shots of Microsofts up coming analytics software named Gatineau are being released, we are still anxiously awaiting an invite to the beta. Reports from around the blogosphere are the beta should launch sometime this week.
Startup Hustle is looking forward to a competitor to Google
Analytics. The more data points you can use in your analytics research the better. Plus we want to see if Microsoft can provide a better challenge with Gatineau that it did with adCenter.
If you are interested in being part of the Gatineau beta, sign up here.
Read more:Challenge
Dont Bid on the Word ‘Keywords’ 2007-09-14 11:59:13 I know, I know…..who would do that? Apparently it is a growing problem that can be an expensive mistake.
It happens (most commonly) when you copy a keyword list from Excel or even Word and grad the header of the list called…..’Keywords
’.
If you search the term ‘Keywords’ in Yahoo you will notice a few companies that have nothing to do with the term ‘Keywords’ and made a mistake.
It can be small but expensive mistake. Make sure you run through your keywords before you publish them live. Thanks to Bill Hartzer for noticing this PPC mistake.
Google Analytics Issues - Paid vs. Direct Traffic 2007-10-02 10:39:07 As of Saturday the 29th of September, GoogleAnalytics
has only been counting roughly 15% of my PPC (adwords) traffic. At the same time my direct traffic has doubled. I’m not positive that GA is counting “paid traffic” as “direct traffic” but I do know that all of the tracking scripts have not been changed during this time (I have auto-tagging enabled so that is not the issue for you GA experts).
Check your traffic statistics daily to find shifts in your traffic.
This is a common issue that all internet marketers need to be aware of. If these shifts go unnoticed, you could be making important business decisions on bad traffic data that you should have caught.
If anyone else is experiencing such an issue please let us know.
Read more:Issues
, Direct
, Google Analytics
Is your New Company a Killer Startup? 2007-10-01 06:15:58
The domain name says it all, KillerStartup
s.com. Do you really need us to explain further?
Killer Startups is a fantastic site that allows readers (or the Killer Startups crew) to submit internet startups that can be voted as “Killer” in a Digg-like fashion. The top 10 Killer Startups (KS) list should be the target for you young entrepreneurs. KS provides badges to insert on your site so everyone can vote for your internet venture.
The Killer Categories are (in which you classify your startup):
Blogging-Widgets
Comm
eCommerce
Marketing
Mobile
Search
Social Networking
User Gen. Content
Video-Music-Photo
Web 2.0
Web App-Tools
The rumor on the street among the hustlers are investors patrol Killer Startups for potential investment opportunities. Since it is free to submit your startup, you really cant go wrong.
How Important is SEO on your Startup’s Priority List? 2007-10-11 11:25:59 I just walked out of a meeting with a startup, fighting the continual battle of what priority does SEO
have when put into the programming queue. This meeting worked in my favor because a month ago the SEO plan was deemed “low priority”. This week, as traffic numbers slump, SEO has been bumped to “high priority”.
The problem is SEO does not work overnight.
If the changes had been implemented a month ago we might not see the affects yet (even though it is an established site with high PR), but I’m positive rushing SEO at this point is not going to help. SEO work has to be planned well in advance. On-page SEO, from a programmers standpoint, sucks but it is not that time consuming. SEO needs to be implemented at least a few months in advance before you really see results. That time frame can shift depending on how established a site already is.
Regardless if you outsource SEO or have the in-house marketing team do it, is there enough emphasis on search engine Read more:Startup
How the new Google PageRank will Affect Startups. 2007-10-09 02:15:18 The online marketing community is buzzing about the new GooglePageRank
(PR) update and the number of sites that are dropping PR. If you are a seasoned internet marketer this update creates enough problems, but those new startups with fresh sites, you have a chance to stay clear of the new line Google has drawn.
The new PR update shows evidence that Google is trying to fight link buying. Selling and buying links is a popular way to increase your PR, especially if you are a new startup that needs love from Google. The link buying process will become even more covert now that Google is penalizing sites that are buying and selling links.
Be very careful with buying and selling links as you launch your new startups site.
The last thing a startup needs is to fight a Google penalty out of the gates. As Google is turning link buying into a black hat SEO act, it would be best for young entrepreneurs to stick with white hat SEO techniques till the dust settles.
Read more:Affect
, Startups
Guerrilla Marketing with LinkedIn Answers 2007-10-04 09:53:10 As facebook slowly eats away at the networking need of LinkedIn
(at least in the startup world), LinkedIn actually has one valuable (guerrilla marketing) tool that facebook doesn’t….Answers.
LinkedIn Answers is a Q&A system much like Yahoo Answers but with the business slant. LI Answers is great because the responses you get are truly helpful which is rare in open forums. Using LI Answers I have been able to:
Sell products
Introduce new services
Conduct marketing research
Product development
Setup meetings when traveling for business
There is a trick to taking full advantage to LinkedIn Answers and the most important part of this post. DO NOT SPAM THE SYSTEM. It doesn’t work. Spamming never works. You have to know how to take advantage of the system in a way that helps the other members.
For example, when someone asks a question and my product could provide the solution I will respond with, “Have you looked into (insert product here). It (feature here Read more:Marketing
, Guerrilla Marketing
New Domain extension opportunity - .me 2007-10-18 05:30:45 The eastern European country of Montenegro is getting its own domain extension, and it has the chance to produce some fun domain names. Montenegro’s new domain is “.me“. If you have any entrepreneurial bones in your body the potential is filling your head. Examples:
buy.me
find.me
hire.me
pay.me
text.me
The domains are are scheduled to be available for registration during the first quarter of 2008. Do remember, nothing replaces a “.com” domain but it is not essential for success. Just look at del.icio.us.
Banner Ads and the Mystical Ad Blindness 2007-10-16 02:55:22 Have you thought of using banner ads in your marketing? Ad blindness (aka banner blindness) is becoming an increasing issue for advertisers. Think of Times Square (on the left), do you really get anything from all of those billboards, or do you just ignore them?
When marketing on the internet, banner ads are a common medium for sites that are trying to reach a target market. Ads are often in the same positions on the majority of sites. This makes it simple for people to ignore banner ads. Are banner ads worth the cost when ad blindness is an issue?
For example, you decide to post a banner ad on a Blog A. Of course the cost varies, most often on the traffic stats of the publishing site. You eagerly watch your analytics for the traffic and conversions. After a month the blog owner is ready to sign you up for the next month, but after looking at your stats you are hesitant. Were your expectations to high? Was Blog A the best site to advertise on?
I often evaluate the effectiveness of bann Read more:Banner
Updating the “Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization” 2007-10-15 01:15:18 The group at SEOmoz are revamping their “Beginner
’s Guide
to SearchEngineOptimization
”. If you have not taken the time to better understand how the search engines (mainly Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask) work, then it is time to start. The majority of you are working on internet startups or at the very least have a website for your B&R shop and the search engines control new customers picking you or a competitor. Rand has released the first two articles (I will continue to update this thread as new articles are released) :
How Search Engine
s Operate
How Search Engines Operate Continued
Understanding the Visuals of the SERP’s
I recommend grabbing the RSS feed and reading each article. It is a great source to start your SEO education.
Read more:Search Engine Optimization
Google Obviously Doesn’t Use Their New SiteLinks Tool 2007-10-23 06:30:42 The Adwords crew missed the Google
Webmaster Central Blog post about the new SiteLinks tool in Webmaster Tools.
Or they have a real love for the Mozilla FireFox Start Page.
SEO Theory - Our New Favorite Blog 2007-10-22 05:30:52 StartupHustle doesn’t usually discuss the blogs we read. All sites under “Marketing Sites” and “Startup Sites” to the right are actual sites we use/read but we have found a new blog that we cant stop reading.
SEOTheory
- SEO Theory and Anaylsis Blog
SEO Theory describes itself as “Search engine optimization theory focuses on algorithm analysis, Web community relationship analysis, SEO practices and techniques and related topics such as industry news.” The blog is written by Michael Martinez of 1st Query.
SEO Theory is not for beginners and every article has relevant information to continue your SEO education. The topics are thorough and well written. We have never dug so far into the archives of a blog
To get you started, we suggest you read “Site Search Optimization 2.0“.
This is a definite RSS feed you need.
Read more:Favorite
When was the Last Time You “Visited” Your Site? 2007-11-01 02:30:32 I spent the last week going through a site that has been up for over a year. I went through the site as the customer. What I found was scary:
Product confusion.
Poor Search results.
Differing messages to members.
The great part about working with a startup is being able to make changes and shift strategies quickly. The bad part of working with a startup is being able to make changes and shift strategies quickly. Every startup I have worked with does bug testing before a release. The problem is adding new features or lines of business to a site can have a snowball effect beyond bugs. In the consulting industry it is called the “customer journey”.
When was the last time you experienced your site from the users perspective?
The more you add to a site the more disjointed it can become. If you have ONE action your site performs, it is hard to mess it up. If you provide multiple actions, and involves a user base that needs to join, it can get crazy.
With all of the options on
Another way to Get Microsoft’s Gatineau Analytics Tool 2007-10-30 18:14:50 If you have tried to join the beta for Microsoft
’s new Gatineau Analytics
Tool without any luck, I have good news. The new beta round is starting, the only catch is you have to be an advertiser with adCenter, the Microsoft version of Google Adwords.
This might be a small obstacle if you currently do not use paid search for your startup, in which you might want to wait for the public release. Here are a few words from the adCenter blog:
“With the Gatineau beta, you can learn more about where your visitors come from and easily measure your marketing campaigns across any medium and from any traffic source.
Features include:
Click and visitor tracking reports
Marketing campaign reporting and conversion tracking
Unique demographic and geographic information from your site visitors
Of course, Project Gatineau is a beta service so we are still adding features and working hard to improve.”
Visit the Gatineau page to sign-up for the new beta.
How to Get A New Site Indexed by Search Engines 2007-10-29 03:30:03 You just launched a new site for your startup and you are ready for the traffic to flow. Lets not fight the obvious, being indexed by Google (and to a lesser extent Yahoo) is important for future traffic goals. The common rule of thumb is if a website is linking to your new startup site, the search engines will find it. To start, lets determine if your new site has been found.
Enter “site:www.yoursite.com” into the search bar in Google and Yahoo.
If the result is “Your search - site:www.yoursite.com - did not match any documents”, your site is not indexed. The good news is, it is easy to get indexed once you have your XML sitemap created.
How do I get indexed by Google? Google provides Webmaster Center that allows you to submit your XML sitemap. This tool will let you know if Google is having trouble indexing your site……valuable information to say the least. The quick version is to submit your URL only to Google. I still recommend using webmaster t Read more:Indexed
, Search
, New Site
Entertaining (Free) Keyword Tools 2007-11-05 04:45:10 Keyword research can be tedious and time consuming but extremely important. You know all the traditional (free) keyword tools:
Keyword Discovery (one of my favorite)
Wordtracker
Adwords External Keyword Tool
While I would like to argue that you have better things to do when launching a startup, keyword research is critical. The following tools represent keyword information in a more appealing way and will help expand your search for new keywords.
The first tool is called Quintura.
You insert the word you want to search and Quintura produces search results (powered by Yahoo XML) and a word cloud (on the left). The word cloud shows all keywords that are related to that term per search engine results.
Quintura is also great as a competitor keyword search tool. If you search the URL (ex. startuphustle) of a competitor, you will get a word cloud of terms that relate to that site. From the test I have run it is fairly accurate.
The next keyword tool is KartOO (below, Flash is needed to ru Read more:Entertaining
, Keyword
, Tools
Should Startups Use Facebook’s New Ad Platforms? 2007-11-08 05:45:08 Earlier this week Facebook
announced a set of new advertising options for businesses. With many big corporations already signed up, are these new advertising platforms beneficial for startup companies? The first thing you have to consider is your target market. If you believe that you have an audience on Facebook, please continue reading.
The one product any business can use is the Facebook Pages. It is the equivalent of a facebook profile page for your business. Facebook is now a social network for businesses (convenient since it was already happening).
The first ad platform is Project Beacon. This is a user opt-in feature to receive messages to their mini-feed (on the profile) from your brand. For example, if you have a listing on eBay, you can publish it on your Facebook profile for all of your friends to see. This is being seen as a “referral” of that product or service because the Facebook member is using the service.
The larger question is do members want to see thei Read more:Startups
, Platforms
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