Display advertising, also often referred to as banner advertising, is another key aspect of online marketing. Display advertising is online ads consisting of text, graphics images or logos that are embedded into a Web page.  The three most commonly used display sizes —leaderboard, skyscraper, or boombox/big box (see Figure 1)—are presented in rich (flash or dynamic), static (unmoving) or expandable formats. In order to choose the most impactful type of ad for your campaign, one must consider many factors before getting started. (more…)

There has been a swarm of articles and blog posts in the last 24 hours discussing the deal reached between Yahoo and Microsoft.  With yesterday’s signing, the landscape of SEO and paid search will be dramatically changing.

What the Deal Entails
The 10-year agreement gives Microsoft control over Yahoo! Search while Yahoo will now focus on promoting the other aspects of its properties (e-mail, messenger, games and puzzles, news, etc).  Yahoo’s site will continue functioning as it currently does, but once the deal is finalized, Bing will power the search on Yahoo.com. The agreement gives Microsoft exclusive rights to Yahoo!’s search technologies and the rights to integrate those technologies into their existing platform. Additionally, Microsoft’s Bing will exclusively provide paid and organic search on Yahoo! Web sites. (more…)

Part of what makes Web sites so powerful is that they enable companies to track visitor usability. Thanks to analytics software, companies have the ability to determine popular pages and navigational paths within their site, which keywords are drawing the most traffic, which links receive the most click-throughs—and therefore which content is most relevant to users—and the point at which most visitors drop out of the conversion funnel. This knowledge provides incredible power to organizations. As an example, the ability to identify where users are dropping out of the conversion process (bouncing), react quickly and patch the leak can have huge impacts on the bottom line. (more…)

Many debate the most important element to running a successful business. Some place high importance on profitability, while others view customer retention and quality customer service as having more of an impact.  As CEO of Rise Interactive, it is my belief that while these and many other elements are crucial to running a successful company, the core of operating a successful business lies in trust. While I recognize that this isn’t an earth-shattering concept, if a company is not built upon trust it can quickly unravel. (more…)

You can’t go far without hearing about, encountering or participating in social media. Whether it is blogs, newsletters, forums, user-generated or social bookmarking sites, social media is quickly stealing the marketing limelight. And with Web sites like Facebook, boasting over 200 million active members worldwide, it’s not surprising clients are increasingly interested in, and sometimes consumed with, learning how to incorporate social media into their marketing efforts. While there’s no denying that social media can be incredibly powerful, it’s interesting to compare its effectiveness to other Internet marketing tactics, such as SEO and paid search. (more…)

Everyone sees the paid/sponsored links at the top of the search engine results when they perform a search.  What many are unfamiliar with is the tactics companies implement in order to position their ads in that valued real estate.  There are two influencing factors on determining a company’s rank in the paid search space: bid amount and Quality Score.  In this post, we’ll examine both of these elements and explain how the two work together to determine placement in the paid search fields. (more…)