What impact will these little “plus signs” have on your advertising strategy?

Google’s Marissa Mayer, VP of search products and user experience, informed the NY Times last month about Google’s latest SERP feature and testing began the same day. Andy Beal (MarketingPilgrim.com ) and others at SERoundtable were among the first to spot the new video ads today.

The NY Times article also quoted Mayer as saying that…

…text ads are not as effective on pages with search results that include images and video. The eyes of users automatically gravitate to the images more than the text, she said. Now that Google’s main search results pages include more images, video links and other elements, it is more appropriate, she argued, to have corresponding advertising formats.

Rather than “appropriate”, Andy Beal described Google’s latest move of implementing video ads into search results as “Google Getting Greedy…There’s really no other way to dress this up.” Beal suggested that Google’s implementation strategy of “taking a delicate approach” is indeed mandatory.

…walking the fine line between “monetizing its success” and “getting too greedy and alienating its users.” It’s a very fine line - one that the likes of Alta Vista and Excite over-stepped and ended up withering in the shadow of a search engine that had a clean interface.

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Early signs of new things to come from Google. Videos showing up in the search results have a way yet to evolve, but now that it has started, it should be interesting to see how things progress and how far they take it.
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It takes a lot of guts …and a HUGE reputation to preamble a blogpost with something this strong. John Reese has both!

This may be the single most important blog post you may ever read.

I MUST WARN YOU… it’s very possible that the first time you read this post you will overlook it’s power. It’s very easy to do.

So I beg of you… PLEASE follow just two rules before you continue…

1. You must PRINT-OUT this blog post before reading it. I want you to read this entire post while being able to hold it in your hands. This will give you the best chance of getting it.

2. Read this entire blog post with an OPEN MIND. Promise yourself that you will not cast judgment, ‘react’ or even try to discount anything you are about to read until you have read the entire post all the way through AND have given it all a chance to sink in.

If you can follow those two simple rules you are ready to continue. You are ready to change your life.
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WebmasterWorld’s Search & Internet Marketing Conference (PubCon) 2007 was held Dec 4-7 at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada

Whether it’s white hat, black hat, paid links or just straight up spam, Matt Cutts is the man with the answers when it comes to search engine optimization and marketing. WebProNews caught up with Matt at last week’s PubCon in Las Vegas, and he had some interesting things to say about the future of SEO/SEM and Google’s move toward becoming a comprehensive social media portal and also offered further insight on his specific objectives when attending events such as PubCon…read more

(Video interview non-embeddable)

A listing of methods of promoting your Web site with an analysis of the cost of each. The bottom line: “There is no “magic bullet” (no matter what anybody claims). Most successful online businesses employ several of these strategies simultaneously to create a successful marketing ‘mix.’”

[Published since November 1995, Web Marketing Today is the largest circulation Internet marketing e-mail newsletter in continuous publication… free version to 107,000+ confirmed opt-in subscribers…]

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Link baiting. You’ve heard of it, most likely, but maybe are at a loss as to how it works or how to make it work for you. In this article, we explore both the search and social aspects of link bait, what it is, and how it can be approached.

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