RKG Logo 434-978-4300

Date Archive: January 2008

The Usability Of Everyday Things

Strange controls on a fridge have little impact. It just takes me an extra minute or so to adjust it so it stops freezing the lettuce in the back of crisper. For a retail site, there’s no similar level of commitment. Design oddities, poorly-labeled buttons, and counter-intuitive shopping processes lead directly to abandons, brand damage, and lost sales.

read more...

YUI Grids Builder: Easy Wizard Lets You Build Clean Compliant Cross-Browser Pages Quickly

Yahoo open-sources some truly amazing code, such as YUI.

read more...

What You Need To Know About Internet Law: Copyrights And Jurisdiction

Legal analysis of copyrights and jurisdiction, as each relates to web marketing.

read more...

Free Tool To Cluster PPC Phrases Into Related AdGroups — RKG Duck

I demonstrate how RKG Duck can cluster keywords into related buckets.

read more...

AdGroups as a Barrier to Success

AdGroups are useful for folks managing small programs, and an essential construct in making Content advertising work well. However, for a large complex search program, AdGroups are simply in the way. In this post, we’ll dig into how and why we don’t pay too much attention to the engines’ advice on AdGroups.

read more...

Quack, Quack: Made-For-AdSense Spam

Our hapless Duck picks 2000+ MFA spam pages in 48 hours.

read more...

“Starting from Scratch: A Paid Search Primer” Finalist For Best PPC Blog Post Of Year

One of of this blog’s posts progresses to the final round of the SEMMYs — the award for best PPC blog post of the year.

read more...

Hacking Up A Google Analytics API via Yahoo Pipes

Amusing: hacking Google analytics via Yahoo pipes.

read more...

IsabellaOliver.com Overcomes 3 Key Challenges of Online Retail Videos

Because they overcome the typical (and non-trivial) challenges with such panache, it’s worth your time to check out to the great “runway videos” on IsabellaOliver.com.

read more...

SEO / SEM Powertool: RKG Duck

Yesterday on SearchEngineLand we announced the opensourcing of RKG Duck, a powerful tool which lets you run filters on the Windows clipboard.

read more...

What You Need To Know About Internet Law: Trademarks

Marty Eisenstein shares some presentations on web intellectual property law. Part 1 covers trademarks.

read more...

“Starting from Scratch: A Paid Search Primer” Nominated For Best SEM Post Of The Year

Congratulations to Ryan Gibson that his recent blog post, “Starting from Scratch: A Paid Search Primer”, was nominated for a best-post-of-2007 award.

read more...

4 Keys for Maximizing the Long Tail

We often hear references to “the Long Tail” of search. But the length of the list is secondary to the value it’s bringing to the program. Quantifying the “thickness” of your tail can be a good check on the overall health of the program.

read more...

Interview: Attorney Marty Eisenstein On Nexus, Gift Cards, The FTC, CAN-SPAM, And Other Legal Best Practices For Online Retailers

Marty I. Eisenstein is a senior partner with Brann Isaacson, a law firm specializing in direct marketing law. Marty shared his thoughts on tax law, gift cards, and general legal best practices for online retailers.

read more...

14 Hot Ideas in Free and Paid Search For 2008

From this month’s Catalog Success, fourteen important ideas for paid and natural search going into 2008.

read more...

Unabashed Plug: Internet Retailer’s First Web Design Conference… and Free Consultations

I’m looking forward to presenting at Internet Retailer’s new Web Design Conference, January 30- February 1, in sunny Miami.

read more...

Ray Kurzweil on NPR Discussing Technological Evolution

Because we use our tools to build ever better tools, our technological prowess is increasing exponentially fast.

read more...

RegHack To Stop Windows From Opening Folders In New Windows

Something broke on my computer and Windows insisted on opening all folders in new windows. Hebert Jeremy’s registry hack finally solved this.

read more...

PPC Copy Changes Can Hurt You

Finding the right message for your PPC ads is important, and testing is a key component of a well run program. But too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Find out the sometimes hidden costs of over doing the copy changes.

read more...

“It is mathematically possible for Google to become a $100B corporation” — Eric Schmidt

Ken Auletta profiles Google in this week’s New Yorker.

read more...

Conversion “Gotchas” at One of My Favorite Men’s Clothing Stores

Jos. A. Bank’s marketing e-mails work. But each time I get to the site, basic problems with site design and usability prevent me from ordering online.

read more...

Shop.org’s Larry Joseloff Discusses Innovation, Orlando, And Organizing The MultiChannel Retail Firm

I’m a Shop.org fan, and this post is an unabashed plug for the upcoming Strategy And Innovation conference in Orlando, January 22nd through January 24th.

read more...

Steve Souder: How $20 Can Speed Up Your Site By 10%

Steve Souder’s new book, High Performance Web Sites, is excellent. He describes how front end design choices can speed up a site by 10 to 20%.

read more...

Darden’s Paul Farris On MBA & Exec Ed Web Marketing Courses

“Will the web turn everyone into a direct marketer? My short answer is: everyone’s gonna try.” Paul Farris

read more...

In Software, The Interface Is The Product

Too many online retailers lack IT agility, despite having great developers. Why? How much blame should be placed on their development methodology?

read more...
Next Page »

Email Updates

Categories

Recent Comments

  • Mark Ballard: Cory, I don’t see this as an SEO v. PPC issue. The core of my argument is that CTRs are lower primarily due to misleading...
  • Cory Grassell: What are your thoughts on stats that suggest consumers are more apt to click on organic search results than PPC results? As a...
  • George Michie: Kevin, Marc, thanks for your comments. Help is coming, but not the solution. There are a number of instances when the CTR on the...
  • Marc Adelman: George, You have been an advocate of “the advanced control option” for years now. Depressing right YEARS! Eh…listen...
  • Kevin Hill: Is what they really need is a fourth match type. Here’s google’s help documentation on broad match: This is the default...
  • Kevin Micalizzi, Dimdim Web Conferencing: Jim (& George)- We still offer a free version of Dimdim. Just click Sign Up Now at the top of the...
  • Tomas: indeed, i can’t talk about it either… :)
  • Philip Price: Thank you for the RegHack, it worked for me, tho at first when i made the reg file with the information i copied from above i also...
  • George Michie: Sorry Jim, this post was written in 2007. Apparently some of those products are gone.
  • Jim: Hey, I checked two products like dimdim and cutepdf but none is free. What are you talking about free and open source?
  • George Michie: If they keep hearing the same message, and seeing evidence in the data to back it up, something will have to give. There is hope on...
  • Tomas: I’ve been having the same argument with Google for months now and in the end there does seem to be a feature in the algorithm that...
  • George Michie: Doesn’t have to be, it can be intra-adgroup as well.
  • Josh: George – I take it you’re referencing a scenario where your exact-match keywords are not listed as negative exact match keywords...
  • George Michie: Melissa, you’re right, it’s always happened to varying degrees, particularly since the advent of extended broad match....

Blog Stats

  • Posts: 948
  • Words: 451,089
  • Comments: 2,877

Administration