In the spirit of optimization, we often sit in on online seminars about new technologies or topics important to our industry. Gotta keep this machine well-oiled! I recently sat in on a search marketing web seminar that was all about keyword research. Now, as these things tend to be, it was largely a sales pitch. Hrmpf. But, it did provide a nice reiteration of some best practices (so quick nod to the host of the webinar, paid search reporting platform, ClickEquations).

This inspired me to spread the continuing education love and share some small steps you must be taking in your keyword research and selection to make your paid search advertising campaigns successful.

Before you set up a campaign, you always start with your planning phase—the volume research, the competitive analysis, etc. This is an important phase. More important, though, is what comes after you launch your campaign: the keyword optimization. It’s important that you keep an eye on your keywords, measure performance, and use your findings to perfect your paid efforts.
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Once the year starts winding down and the months begin to get closer to the holiday season, there’s one thing lurking in the back of everyone’s mind (whether they like it or not), and that one thing is, you guessed it, shopping for the holidays. The feeling of the season-of-giving creeping up might give you a warm tingly feeling inside, or on the other hand completely stress you out. But in the end, the bitter realization is, that when this time comes around people will be spending money, and lots of it (no matter the state of the economy).  The big difference these days is (with the economy in its current state), consumers are going to use every resource possible to find the best deal out there.

Although lots of people still do their shopping in stores, there is one resource that almost everyone utilizes. Yep, you said it, the Internet! I know this is a big surprise to everyone, but the important thing to focus on isn’t the fact that people use the Internet to do their shopping, but HOW they use it to shop.

There are a cornucopia of different resources (blogs, social networks, email services, rewards & directories, cross-shopping) that can be used to find information about products/deals, but one resource that single-handedly dominates all of them is, search engines. Take a peak at this graph from Hitwise -

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If you’re managing paid search campaigns for your company, or your own business, you’ve probably heard the talks the past year over the Yahoo to Bing transition. If you’ve been living on Mars, then you should know that Yahoo paid search ads will soon be running through the Bing AdCenter, but ads will be shown on both Yahoo And Bing sites. Below are some differences in the two campaign managers and some changes you should make to your accounts.
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The word around town lately is that Google is working on their own social media network, called “Google Me.” It would apparently be modeled off Facebook, and one can clearly infer it is intended to (attempt to) crush the ol’ FB. And things heated up a couple days ago with former Facebook CTO, Adam D’Angelo, stating on his own social platform, Quora, that the rumors are not rumors. No one from Google is commenting, but social media enthusiasts sure are all atwitter (tee hee…pun totally intended). Facebook seems so ingrained in our lives now—and became so quite quickly, really—that it feels like no one could ever top them. Of course if anyone can, it would be Google, the king of brand-name-as-commonly-used-verb companies. Shall be an interesting one to watch!

The team at Google Analytics provides weekly videos, answering questions from users around the world. This week’s post was 36 minutes long ?!?! and knowing how valuable your time is, we thought we’d watch the video for you and report back on the latest news. You’re welcome.

• What is the best way to track social media referrals? Through an advanced, custom segment in Google Analytics. Re-writing your URLs to track these referrals can actually hinder your data, not help it. Also use custom alerts to proactively know right away when major increases from social media channels occur.


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envisionit media teams up with Fairmont Hotel in Chicago to develop a “new dining experience”. The iPad application will give diners a behind the-scenes look at the more unusual and unexpected items on the aria menu. Diners can tap on specific ingredient names for definitions, descriptions, and notes about preparation. The wine list, organized by region, will suggest menu pairings for each vintage, as well as background information about each winery. The application also incorporates elements of social media, allowing diners to share their favorite items with people they know via email, their Twitter feeds, or Facebook walls.

-click here for the press release-

With the launch of Google Caffeine and after talk at SMX Advanced 2010 in Seattle, Google’s made it clear that they will start looking more at video sitemaps when indexing websites. Why? Because they’re sexy! Videos are slick, compelling and fun, and people like them. And what does Google like? Things that people like.

Videos and Video Sitemaps themselves are not brand new, but there are related changes in the Google landscape that make them more important.

Universal Search
This actually isn’t brand new either, but many people probably still don’t really know about it. I’ll guess you have noticed over the last several years that pretty pictures and such have been popping up on the Google results pages. This is Google intuitively guessing what kind of content you’re looking for, and pulling the appropriate rich media or other targeted results right into their main search results (see the results snapshot below for “monkeys jumping on the bed”). This is in contrast to a user clicking on what Google calls their “vertical search” options, like Videos, Maps, or Books, to only search that type of content.
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Settled back in from 2 full days at the SMX Advanced 2010 search marketing expo in weather-schizophrenic Seattle (hmm, sounds like another city I know) . The jet lag is fading back to my normal everyday loopiness, the withdrawal from 24/7 search marketing conversation is waning, and it’s time to recap a few takeaways that I think our readers would particularly like.

Now, while some debate always occurs at these conferences about the level of information (is it truly “advanced” SEO info?), the fact remains that our job here is to help the clients of EIM stay in the know enough to make smart decisions about their businesses’ online presence (and lean to us for the advanced details! ). So this recap is for you. Our user. It’s not necessarily to gain points with the SEO community (although I do love thee).
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Let the battle of the search engines begin! (again)

This week Google announced it’s new web indexing system called Caffeine. The new system promises to offer even fresher web content than ever before, up to 50% more than the old Google system. The old way of indexing was not in real time as one might have believed, as Google had only been crawling fractions of the web and updating it a batch at a time.  The batch updating created layers of indexed information for the searcher to sift through. Sometimes one of the layers would be refreshed by Google, and others wouldn’t. Needless to say, it wasn’t a perfect system to provide real time content.

Caffeine will change all that, with continuous indexing that will feature new content immediately, fulfilling the consumer want for their news “now” as it’s happening. From here on out, Google will immediately show breaking news stories in real time, photo updates, social media updates and more. Here is Google’s visual representation of the indexing change:
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envisionit media would like to welcome its newest client, VOA Associates, to the agency! We are proud to have teamed up with Carolyn Grisko & Associates as part of an integrated marketing strategy.

For more than 40 years, VOA Associates has delivered award-winning design, architectural and planning services for an impressive list of clients in a wide range of markets, both geographic and sector-diverse. With offices currently on four continents and projects spanning the globe, VOA is unquestionably an elite and successful design firm that continues to shape our world!

We are proud to partner with them in their new marketing efforts!