Thursday, October 23, 2008
Gasta Gleaning i-information from Search.
Monday, October 13, 2008
10 Great reasons to merge/acquire Gasta.com
Great distribution platform
Great geographical reach
Great and Deep Internet traction
Great digital footprint
Great Blended search functions
Great Global eyeballs
Great and Simple to use advertising platform
Great shared revenues
Great potential for growth and expansion
Great local search
comaparitive deals in Gasta.com region.
Myhome.ie sold to Irish Times for €45million
UK-Based Gasta Search Engine Network Enters Into Sales / Merger Talks
The Gasta search network is a blended search that will deliver web results, news, videos, and images with one single keyword search, then lets users social bookmark search results in their own library. The Gasta search network extends its reach into Europe and USA, has search engines launched in South Africa, China, and Japan.
Gasta is a European trademark and the Gasta search engine was last year’s winner of the PWC award for innovation, it also holds one of the UK most valuable property domain holdings.
Belfast, Ireland - October 09, 2008 – It was announced here today that the Belfast-based web 2.0 Search Engine Network Gasta is in talks with several companies for a possible sale or merger. A well established player in European, US, and Asian search, The Gasta.com search engine network currently consists of 450+ Domains, is translated into six languages, offers a contextualised ad system, powerful SEO options, keyword management tools, and full service administration to create, launch, and quickly deploy new search engines in emerging markets and geographical regions as needed.
Gasta has created a very easy to use back-end admin system that is designed for non technical use, within the admin you can add new keywords, manage ad campaigns, replicate advertising codes, and launch new search index’s and directories in minutes, Gasta has developed its own text based contextualised ad system, InstantAds™ and the keyword direct hit service SearchMatch™ allowing users to buy targeted keywords for the geographic region they do business in. As well as this there are many seo options including InstantLinks™ the free link exchange system that publishes the main directory.” We can launch new search engines in emerging regions very easily, with the rapid deployment platform we have developed” said Higgins. “We can launch in Poland and Malaysia very quickly and have been looking out for possible local partners on the ground in these regions”.
While Gasta.com is well-established in the Search Industry, it has chosen to maintain a low profile and provided state of the art services to its visitors and advertisers. Christian Nielsen, owner of Nielsentech.com, an Internet consulting firm located in the US said he has used Gasta for many years. “Yes, I was submitting client sites to Gasta’s system back as early as 1999 when we started doing SEO and web promotion. They have evolved over the years, and we have keep in contact due to their attitude of service and ethics. Most other firms in the US don’t seem to know about them and that’s been a competitive edge for us.”
Gasta.com owner Francis Higgins believes that now is a 'good time' to transition the search engines network due to the convergence of web 2.0 technologies. Higgins said “We believe that we have created great distribution platform to easily explore and rapidly develop new and emerging regions. We have looked into the possibility of partnering with a mobile carrier to deliver local mobile search in which great opportunities are coming in the future, Gasta works well now on mobiles but we would need the expertise of the big carriers to make an impact and monetise the service.
We have worked hard over the past 12 years to improve the reach and the depth of the Gasta network. With the rapid deployment and white label solution we have developed we can quickly launch blended search engines that will bring up web results, videos, news, and images with one keyword. Our brand commands a high level of respect by those that are familiar with us and those that do some research will see our extensive digital footprint built up over the years that shows our quality and consistency and has established our brand’s value in the search marketing industry."
Contacts
Francis Higgins
Comm Director Gasta Search Networks
bizz@amiwired.com
+44(0)2890333748
Mob:+44(0)7816447363
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Sale Of Search Engine Network
Sale Of Search Engine Network Generates Traffic
We've been getting a lot of emails looking for more information about the European Search Engine Network that I posted about the other day. To eliminate some of the questions, I am posting some more information about this 12 year old network of sites that is built upon their search technology. The more I learn about what they have, the more potential I see for someone with additional skills, capital, and other resources to tie into what they already have and expand on or into the European market.
Here is some more information:
- Monthly traffic of 3,000,000+ per month across the network.
- 3,500 current /past advertisers
- Registered as a European distribution partner for Microsoft Adwords.
- A partner with Google Doubleclick and Adsense.
- Has the ability to deploy new local search engines quickly.
- Currently targeting markets in Europe, US, and several other countries as well as several topics, such as travel.
- Owns at least 4 trademarks
- Currently has 450+ Domains launched on their servers.
Domains:
· International
· US
· UK
· Ireland
· Europe
· Austria
· France
· Germany
· Italy
· Spain
· India
· China
· Japan
· South Africa
· Money
· Travel
· and several others
If you are interested or require more information please let me know and I will put you in touch with the company. I've been friends with the owner for some time now and agreed to help them find a buyer if I can.
I would have thought the current economic situation would have made it difficult to generate interest in a search network such as this, but I was clearly wrong. There are many that would like to expand their current holdings and sites like social networks, consumer shopping sites, auction sites, and sites that are based on UGC (User Generated Content) seem to be super interested in adding mature search to the current offerings. Building is always an option, but why build and re-invent the wheel when you can buy.
And I just learned today that one of my old favorite UK search engines, www.Burf.com was sold and now has a new owner.
If you need to reach me, just Google "NielsenTech" and you should be able to contact me.
Gasta European Search
Easy Access To European Search: Make Your Competitors Pay You
I guess it's small by some standards, but there seems to be increasing interest in the European Search Engine Network we have posted about before that is well established in several countries over the past 12 years. With over 3.5 million unique visitors a month it's not small, but it should be clear to almost anyone that there is substantial room for growth.
We've been asked to not disclose the name of the company or the main search engine at this time, but when I get the ok I will post again. I think this will be pretty big news when the full story comes out.
Short list of potential buyers:
AOL
Yandex
Rediff
Ask
Baidu
Cuil
Rambler
Amazon
Wikia
Alccoona
There are others but I am less certain about them.
There is talk about some companies with no connection to search currently jumping in with an acquisition such as this. It only makes sense, since the cost to run a large advertising campaign can be considerable and what better way to save money on advertising then to buy all of the search and eyeballs you need for one set price? Then you can charge your COMPETITORS to run their ads on your network of search sites.
Once you do that, you no longer "lose" any business to your competition, since they pay you if they get the customer...!!!Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Gasta Seo: Milind Mody, CEO of eBrandz Inc
Search engine marketing might have to scale down branding campaigns in favor of tactics which yield great 'short as well as long term Return on Investment'."
Specifically Mody said that local search is an important part of the overall mix. "Client reviews and customer ratings form an important aspect of local search SEO. These reviews also helps in branding and reputation management. So I would also highly recommend working with clients on getting their customer ratings and reviews on local search engines."
He said he believes that online advertising is more recession proof than other forms of advertising and that research indicates that any decline in online advertising is because clients are slashing their overall budgets.
"In many cases, clients are reducing print and other offline marketing budgets and spending more online," said Mody.
Gasta News: Gasta welcomes UK Council for Child Internet Safety
The Department for Children, Schools and Families officially launched the UK Council for Child Internet Safety today.
The council will work to bring in the recommendations made by Dr Tanya Byron in her report 'Safer Children in a Digital World', released earlier this year.
Issues such as cyber bullying, inappropriate content online and advertising will be at the top of the agenda.
The council will establish a voluntary code of practice for user-generated content sites.
The council, which is made up of over 100 private and public companies, will report into the Prime Minister.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Gasta Video: Noah Elkin from Steak Digital
Optimizing video and images for search is no longer optional. It's a must-have for brands that want to continue connecting with their customers.
Historically, successful advertisements have depended on two main ingredients: compelling words and captivating imagery. The ascendancy of search engine marketing has put a new premium on the value of words, for if search tells us anything, it's that marketers should take their cues from the terms people plug into search engines.
In effect, marketers who want to capture their customers' attention need to "listen" to the different ways they are expressing their wants and desires through search. Consequently, advertising success today depends on a slightly different set of criteria. Marketers must harness insights into customers' thought processes and the vernacular they use to seek out brands and products. You must synchronize that language across a campaign to ensure that customers not only look for your brand but also find it once they've gone to the web.
In-house and agency search practitioners, as well as experts around the industry, have been sounding this drumbeat for a long time now, but search still faces an uphill battle in relation to sexier on- and offline media. What it really boils down to is an image problem.
The fact that a highly -- if not the most -- effective advertising medium (by some measures, anyway) continues to have an image problem speaks volumes about the culture of advertising. We live in an age when John Wanamaker's old adage -- "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half" -- rings truer than ever for brand managers caught in the transition from offline to online media.
It's not that brand advertisers aren't interested in results and ROI, as tempting as that might be to conclude at times for some search practitioners. Rather, it's that TV and even print are far more emotive than the comparatively austere text ad. TV and print also have the luxury of employing visuals, which provide richer options for conveying a brand's tone, image and message, as well as ultimately creating the kinds of brand associations that lead to loyalty and advocacy. In an industry that evolved on the back of images -- still, moving or otherwise -- there is some truth in the notion that search is as unsexy a medium as you can find. That is, unless your idea of "sexy" is the cold hard dollars that come from conversions -- not that there's anything wrong with that.
How do we go about making search sexier without compromising its effectiveness? Ironically, it may come down to using words to deliver the power of images. Provocative findings from comScore have been making the rounds of all the major conferences this year, and they point strongly in this direction. On the one hand, comScore has shown that interest in multimedia content among searchers is both widespread and not yet matched by placements in blended search results (as first revealed at the Orion panel at SES NY), particularly where video is concerned. On the other, recent studies have demonstrated that over-emphasis on last-click conversions and under-emphasis on latent on- and offline effects result in the loss of a shockingly high percentage of search's overall value.
Combined, the following three trends shed light on the relationship of keywords to images:
- The call to better monetize the 95 percent of paid search ads that do not lead to a click
- The implication that search can and should function as more of a branding vehicle
- Increased searcher interest in video, news and images
As blended search results become the norm across the industry, optimizing video and images is no longer a nice-to-have -- it's a must-have for brands that want to continue connecting with their customers.
I've always said that search will give TV new relevancy to the extent that commercials drive viewers to search engines to find more information about a product they've seen advertised. Now it's becoming increasingly evident that TV -- and news clips and movies and music videos and images -- will do their part to provide new relevancy to search as well.
Noah Elkin is vice president of corporate strategy for international search-inspired digital agency Steak.Monday, September 22, 2008
Gasta News: Music goes portable again.
In a week that will see heavy coverage of MySpace Music when it launches, SanDisk (NSDQ: SNDK) has announced an ambitious venture to sell its microSD memory cards pre-loaded with DRM-fr*ee MP3 music from all the four majors EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group. The service, dubbed “slotMusic”, will launch this coming holiday season in U.S., at Best Buy and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), among others, and then will be launched in Europe, though no specific timeline was given.
The MicroSD format, a SanDisk invention, is used mainly in mobile phones, and also in some MP3 players. When slotMusic goes on dale, these cards will be packaged with a tiny USB sleeve so that they can be compatible with various PCs and laptops, and any other device with a USB connector, including say an in-car sound system. The MP3-based music tracks will be played back at up to 320 kbps, the company said. With 1GB of capacity, slotMusic cards can hold songs, as well as liner notes, album art, videos, and other content that an artist/labels may choose.
There have been previous attempts by SanDisk and others to sell music and content cards through retails, though with limited success.
SanDisk is also in the midst of a takeover attempt by Samsung, which made its $5.85 billion public bid for the company last week, but the company rejected it as too low.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Gasta Paid search
Paid search is a proven winner, yet some marketers don't take advantage of its full potential. Here's why you need to put SEM at the heart of your marketing strategy.
Search engine marketing isn't a perfect marketing medium. But compared to every "innovative" marketing methodology that's come along in the past five years, search is a hands-down winner. This is why Google has become a multi-billion dollar powerhouse and why hundreds of marketers are reaping ROI, increased market share and branding benefits from being active participants in search.
The reasons SEM has taken off are both elementary and revolutionary. As a marketing channel, it offers the following strengths:
- Paid search campaigns happen in real-time, making it possible for marketers to obtain almost instantaneous marketing ROI. Search's real-time nature provides for the ongoing fine-tuning of all variables in the campaign in a continuous process of optimization, which means that marketers can learn and improve their campaigns over time.
- Paid search advertising is by its very nature the most unobtrusive way of getting the word out about one's product, service or brand. Instead of pushing a messages in the face of an uninterested and possibly unwilling audience, SEM is a low-key "pull medium," responsive to the user's intention to engage. Therefore, calls to action are more likely to be heeded because users perceive them to be relevant to their intent.
- The data generated by paid search campaigns can have enormous value to marketers, in terms of providing business intelligence, extending CRM efforts and scouting out audience segments that may have been neglected by existing marketing plans. Given that search behavior is highly responsive to non-search marketing efforts (both on- and offline), such data can provide a reliable indication of the effectiveness of all other marketing efforts.
- Paid search is still a relatively inexpensive medium and search campaigns can be dynamically scaled up or down to accommodate varying needs. Applying targeting and segmentation technologies can dramatically reduce (although not completely eliminate) the problem of non-converting clicks.
Unfortunately, each one of these strengths comes with major caveats. The fact that search happens in real-time provides both opportunity and risk. Minor campaign errors can quickly result in significant financial losses unless they are quickly corrected, so the onus is on the marketer to continually monitor search campaigns to ensure peak performance.
The mere fact that search provides the ability to systematically test campaign elements doesn't ensure that such steps will be taken. Nor do many marketers actually use the rich data from search to inform their non-search marketing efforts. Teams can be overloaded with data, and many function in departmental isolation where they are insulated from high-level marketing strategy conversations.
Finally, while paid search is inexpensive relative to other media, media management costs are proportionally higher. Unlike other channels where the media is expensive (such as television) but media management costs are low (because the media is easy to buy), search presents the exact converse. The media (keywords) are cheap but the costs of managing campaigns may be significant -- especially for sophisticated search campaigns.
Given these difficult issues, many marketers choose to simply outsource some or all of the search campaign process to an outside agency, either one that already handles their online media buying or a specialized search shop that does nothing else but search. In my view, there are definite risks with going the big agency route, because big agencies rarely have access to the sophisticated technology required to deliver top-performing search campaigns. Nor does their economic model (which depends on marking up media bought in big chunks such as radio/TV buys) favor intensive work on search. You can't really blame big agencies for regarding search this way, because it's only natural for agencies to focus their efforts on media buying opportunities where the profit potential is greatest.
Specialized SEM agencies provide an alternative to the big agency route, but once again, marketers need to exercise care before committing their search budgets to such organizations. Many SEM agencies are new and don't have more than a few years of operating experience behind them. While many promise to deliver unparalleled campaign results using "proprietary" technology, the fact is that many of them license the same off-the-shelf campaign management tools used by the big agencies, limiting their ability to provide truly customized solutions.
As there are no industry benchmarks for evaluating such agencies, a good selection rule is to look at the agency's client list, seek out positive, unbiased testimonials from those who have used them in the past and, perhaps most importantly, examine how much their existing clients have grown since the agency took over their accounts.
However the work gets done, marketers need to understand that search isn't just another marketing channel, but a fundamental organizing method by which users and marketers can find each other in the terabytes of data constituting the digital world. While it's attractive to think that search can just be bolted onto existing media plans, it is far better to regard search as an integral element at the heart of the marketing strategy, because the demand that you drive through your media efforts is all harvested in the search process.
David Pasternack is president of Didit,Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Gasta to team up with Russian Search Engine Yandex
History of Yandex
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Gasta Video News:
Online TV viewing doubles in past year
The regulator’s annual UK Communications Market Report found the number of people watching TV programmes online grew from 8% to 17%, and nearly a third of internet
The number of UK internet users who watched YouTube hit 9m in April, nearly 50% more than a year ago, while the BBC iPlayer delivered more than 700,000 daily video streams in May 2008.
The number of households with digital video recorders grew 53% in 2007 to nearly 6m (23%) and the majority (88%) use them to fast-forward through ads.
The findings were in line with increased online ad spend, which, according to Ofcom, grew to £2.8bn in 2007, attracting more money than the combined ad spend on ITV1, Channel 4, Five and S4C.
This was mainly driven by consumers upgrading from dial-up to broadband.
More than one in ten mobile phone users have accessed the internet on their phone and 3G mobile connections increased by 4.7m (60%) in 2007 to reach 12.5m subscribers.
According to the Ofcom report, the average UK adult spent seven hours nine minutes a day using various communications services, six minutes more than in 2002. This includes radio listening, TV viewing, time spent online, texting or talking on the telephone.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Gasta Advetising set to grow
Find the online opportunities in your own backyard: Gasta.com
These days, the advertising community is focusing its attention on how to create ads for online media -- including video, rich media, Flash, etc. -- and the revenue potential associated with these channels. However, a less-often-asked but vitally important question in terms of industry shift, as well as dollars and cents, is this: Where will these ads be placed?
Industry estimates suggest that mobile advertising will reach nearly $10 billion in the next few years, with online video reaching nearly $3 billion. However, advertising at the local market level -- although not as frequently discussed -- has the potential for even bigger numbers and greater growth. What's more, local advertising isn't at odds with mobile and online video, as many assume. Rather, rich media and geotargeted place-based mobile advertising are likely to be big components of that local online ad spend. Within the context of the changing media landscape, local online advertising represents a massive opportunity that is coming into its own -- and bears more attention from the advertising community.
Tip O'Neill once said, "All politics is local." And while that's not quite true of advertising, it does resonate when assessing this new shift into hyper-local marketing and advertising. According to eMarketer, $97 billion of the $157 billion -- more than 60 percent -- of the advertising market in the U.S. is focused on local. The online portion of that has thus far lagged behind the other advertising channels, with only about $2.1 billion -- 2 percent -- of local advertising being online at the end of 2007. However, that number is expected to more than triple over the next four years to more than $7.8 billion. That's a huge movement of dollars shifting toward reaching local audiences online.
But where are these dollars going to end up?
Although traditional local media -- Yellow Pages, newspapers, radio and broadcast television -- all have an online presence, none of them enjoys the dominance on the web that they do in their "home markets." Yet their audiences are moving online at faster and faster rates, resulting in major drop-offs in print subscriptions to newspapers, broadcast TV audiences, terrestrial radio listenership and Yellow Pages customers.
For example, the Kelsey Group recently found the erosion of print Yellow Pages is going to increase from 2-3 percent to more than 10 percent this year. That's a pretty massive decrease year over year. And even the Yellow Pages Marketing Association concedes that although online usage of Yellow Pages is growing, a 10 percent drop in print usage dwarfs the increase in online searches. Newspapers are in a similar boat with their advertising; online ad sales are climbing, but offline usage declines are taking a larger chunk of ad sales away from the industry as a whole.
And yet, projections show online ad sales more than tripling -- and there has to be a place for all that advertising to land, outside of the traditional media's online presences mentioned above.
With Google, Yahoo and online Yellow Pages growing their audiences, there is certainly going to be growth in local business searches. But what about brand advertising and trying to reach people who are migrating away from traditional television, radio and newspaper outlets for their news?
The numbers are a little grim. There are about 1,400 daily newspapers and 7,000 television and radio stations in the U.S., and back-of-the-envelope math shows that they each produce about three to six stories per day, or about 22,000 local stories for the entire U.S. This for an audience of roughly 20,000 individual cities and towns. All these players used to be able to back up their locally produced content with national stories, thereby providing a full news experience for their viewers or readers. But, the internet has changed all that; people get their national news from national sources. Instead of competing with other local newspapers, papers are competing with every news site that has a web page. Given this fragmentation, local news sites are not maintaining their market share.
So what's going to take up the slack?
Well, nature abhors a vacuum. Thus, amateur, user-generated content and commentaries are taking off in local markets. The internet's solution to the dearth of local news coverage is the same as it has been with other problems of scale: let the people build it themselves. Similar to Wikipedia, the Open Directory and Usenet, truly local content is going to be provided by the people who live there.
In looking at sites like MetroBlogs, Gothamist publications, Outside.in, NowPublic, Baristanet and Topix (the site that I run), it becomes apparent that a massive amount of attention and investment has been paid to giving people a platform for engagement with the places they live. And while social networks (based on who you know) like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace have generated a lot of usage, and even more buzz, none of them has really provided a locally contextual venue. You are unlikely to meet the neighbors who live two blocks away via Facebook or LinkedIn. However, when that same family starts blogging about your neighborhood or commenting on something another neighbor wrote, it's a compelling discussion -- one that you're likely to read and possibly even join.
Given the aforementioned advertising growth and the decline of the traditional places for it to go, user-generated content is where the action is going to be. The local online outlets that make the most sense for a given campaign will vary greatly depending on where you live and who you're trying to reach with your advertising. But the potential audience size available through these channels is impressive. Speaking for Topix, we've seen comment rates go from around 30,000 comments a day in the middle of 2007 to more than 140,000 comments a day -- or more than 3.5 million comments a month -- across more than 20,000 cities and towns within the U.S.
Media consumption and local audiences' preferences are shifting. Advertising is going to shift as well. So along with that cool viral video and mobile campaign, consider how you can make the most of region-specific opportunities as the $97 billion gorilla of locally targeted ad dollars spent in the U.S. starts to move online.
Chris Tolles is CEO of Topix
Gasta Ad Network
Does your ad network make the grade?
With an explosion in the number of ad networks over the last 18 months, it has become increasingly difficult for agencies and clients to identify which network is their best long-term marketing partner -- the network that can deliver a brand's objectives year in, year out.
It will come as no surprise that I believe in the value that a strong network can provide a brand, but the operative word in that sentence is "strong." Ad networks are emphatically not interchangeable, and the business relationships you create in this sector can make a big difference in how well you exceed your business objectives.
As one of the pioneers in this space, I have seen a lot of brands and networks work together over the years. That experience has led me to conclude that there are nine key considerations that should be used to determine what ad networks a planner should choose to have as part of their marketing plans. In my experience, these factors are relevant to both the "vertical" ad network sector, as well as the "horizontal" or general market sector:
Take a look at your ad networks checklist.
Site quality and transparency
- Site quality: Some ad networks truly represent the best sites online. Some mostly sell junk. In my view, the quality of content has both qualitative and quantitative benefits for a brand. On the quant side, sites with better content hold viewer eyes longer on each page, and that enduring exposure makes it far more likely that a user will notice an ad, interact with it and process its message. Qualitatively, there is evidence that the strength of content surrounding an ad can have an impact on brand perceptions. Quality content gives a brand increased credibility; in the vertical sector, having ads placed in quality content can also demonstrate brand support of a user's interest areas.
- Transparent site lists: There appear to be three kinds of site lists out there now: 100 percent transparent, ersatz transparent and "black box." The first and third categories are self-explanatory, while the second refers to networks that are willing to provide some "example" sites, but not the entire list. Although our network does share its entire site list, I don't believe that is an essential consideration for an advertiser. This is because the sites not on your plan have no bearing on your brand, but the sites on your plan do have a profound bearing on your brand. You deserve to know where your ads are running -- all of your ads.
Reach and targeting
- Reach: You don't need to go with the biggest network, but focus your major network spending on players with large numbers of your users/prospects, for practical reasons. Digital planning, buying and reporting are complex enough without having to deal with 25 networks for every buy. By choosing a mix of larger vertical networks and a leading horizontal or two, you can simplify your efforts considerably.
Targeting options: Whether or not you are currently using advanced targeting approaches, having access to some of the methodologies can be a boon for a planner. Behavioural, retargeting and audience segmentation will likely be a part of your future plans, and creating working relationships with highly capable networks can make capitalizing on these technologies easier and more productive in the future.
Cross-platform and growth
Cross-platform opportunities: Just when most marketers are becoming reasonably comfortable with online ads, the media environment has begun to diversify across digital media platforms in a big way. While vehicles like mobile, gaming, social media and widgets aren't new, they are all rapidly reaching a critical mass state that makes ignoring them shortsighted. Some networks have already recognized this glacial change and can offer you entrée into such platforms as part of your standard buys. You would do well to consider these networks more carefully, as they can help guide your efforts through our dramatically changing media environment.
Growth trends: Networks and sites that are growing make under-delivery less likely and ensure that your ads appear in highly involving content. Additionally, when more and more sites are joining a network, you can be assured that they are offering a quality marketing environment.
Exclusive sites and reporting
Exclusive site representation agreements: The polar extremes of the network business are "leftover" networks that sell remnant inventory versus "exclusive" networks that are the outsourced sales arms of publishers. Naturally, most networks fall somewhere in between. But particularly in the "vertical" side of the business, working with networks that are the exclusive sales agents of at least some of their sites provides assurance that they have unique understanding of that vertical, and can provide value-add insights that help make your efforts more efficacious.
Reporting capabilities: If you think about how much time your team spends futzing with spreadsheets, it'll be immediately apparent why working with partners that offer strong reporting should be high on your list of considerations. Depending on your reporting approach, they should either offer strong standalone systems or a way to easily integrate data into existing reporting platforms like DFP. Good reporting also makes real optimization possible -- and to actually optimize, you need to free up hours that would otherwise be spent cursing at Microsoft Excel files.
The people: Before you sign with a network, think about the person who will be serving your account? Is he/she responsive? Proactive? Smart? Do they answer your call promptly? Do they really listen to what you want and need? Great networks can be murder to deal with if your salesperson is lousy. Do yourself a favour and skip the networks that have teams that create problems instead of solutions.
Nine simple considerations -- none of them rocket science -- but each of them an important way to filter the 300 or so networks out there down to a manageable short list. If you choose correctly, you will benefit from long-term relationships that really help build your success.
I hope this brief list of considerations helps you find exactly the right ad network for your future efforts
Robert Tas Sportgenic.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Gasta top repeat keywords purchased.
Top 100 repeat purchased keywords
search engine promotion
search engine submission
web search engine
search engine
search engines
search engine ranking
search engine marketing
search engine placement
all search engine
other search engines
search engine optimization
business search engine
asp search engine
search engine php
photo search engine
american search engine
names of search engines
world search engines
search engine rss
china search engine
web search engines
people search engines
christian search engine
medical search engine
search web sites
popular web sites
business loans calculator
new business loans
new business loan
business loan
search
people search
html search
search spider
search by email
search terms
email address search
job searching
magazine article search
music search com
search message boards
china search
job search
job searches
jobs search
music search
photo search
news paper
current news
rueters news
breaking news reuters
latest news
reuters news
unusual news
reuters news agency
local news
news archives
news today
dow news
france news
global news
nbc news
news and
news from
news headlines
news reports
news sport
news this week
news tickers
register news
retail news
shopping news
weather news
business startup loans
canadian businesses
business article
business newspapers
sports business
business for sale
business monthly
business newspaper
businesses for sale
cards business
homebased business
top business magazines
bad credit loans
unsecured loans
fast loans
loans
sba loan rates
sba loans for women
listen to music
find music
downloading music
music
music downloads
radio online
reuters online
online jobs
online advertising
virtual games online
internet advertising
pay per click advertising
ppc advertising
advertising
web advertising
best of
pride of
the times of
times of
website promotion
website marketing
job websites
website designers
website for sale
reuters website
banks
bank
bank pnc
hotels
holidays
weekend breaks
internet
web marketing
baby slippers
mortgage
tv over internet
christmas shopping
computer stores
hotel
industry magazines
information
internet articles
trends magazine
videos
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Gasta Info request number one.
InstantAds allow you to create an ad campaign that appears in our side panel across all the Gasta Domains. Your adverts have no limit to the number of impressions during your campaign.
Create your advert, add your keywords.
Keywords or keyword phrases are selected by you and should be descriptive of your site, product or service that you are selling. When a user enters a search term which is relevant to the keywords or phrases that you select then there will be a match and your SearchMatch™ Keyword or keyword phrase will be displayed. For example if you ran a jewellery shop and you choose a keyword 'diamonds', now when I enter my search term as 'diamonds' your ad will appear as a sponsored link.
Your ads will appear on the following sites on over 250+ sites
For an up-to-date partners list click here
Prices start at 10 euros per domain.
Simply sign up using the link at the top of the page. You will be asked to create an account; this can be done very quickly by filling in the online form page. Once you have created your password and user name you can select keywords and check for availability or and purchase keywords. It's that simple! Secure payment processing is handled through Worldpay. For bulk purchases contact us directly.
Yes, you can purchase 30 keywords for any one campaign at any one time. This makes it easier for advertising agencies and SEM companies to purchase for their clients.
You can purchase as many ads as you wish, and there is no restriction on adding multiple instances of any advert
Yes, you can change the Keywords, Title, URL, and Description of your adverts at anytime thought the Gasta SEM Zone, this will also enable you to resell keywords to your client companies.
This zone is dedicated to bringing all our marketing tools under one roof. From here you can add InstantAds and SearchMatch
What is better you can edit you ad during anytime once it is active, at no extra cost. Once you advert is approved the first time you then take control and can modify your ad when you like.
We want you to feel in control of your ad campaigns.
Yes, once you buy a InstantAd advert you can change it as many times as you like.
Our ad system revolves in 24 hour cycles if you change your add today, it may take up to 24 hours to display changes.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Gasta SEO: ThinkMetrics Articles
Learn where most companies misstep when it comes to this crucial component of their online marketing strategies.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of tuning the content and coding of a website in order to maximize its listings in search engines. SEO should be part of every well-rounded online marketing program. Pay-per-click advertising is all very well, but it means you have to pay for every visitor. SEO is about getting free traffic from the search engines. Over the course of two years or more, nothing has a better return on investment than SEO. Thus, if you plan on having a website that runs for more than two years, search engine optimization should be a key part of your online marketing strategy.
I started doing search engine optimization in 1996 when Web Position (the world’s first SEO tool) was in beta. I remember receiving an e-mail from the company that pointed out that its tool would make it possible to sell SEO services to clients. At the time, nobody was doing search engine optimization, but it was instantly obvious to me that such a service would be essential if people wanted to be found on the web. I have now been doing search engine optimization for 12 years -- and in some areas I "own" Google.
The most common mistake that organizations make with regard to SEO is bringing their SEO consultants into the process too late. Many companies fail to give SEO its due consideration during a website's design phase. In fact, many companies don't give it any thought at all until after a site's design has been finalized. However, it is during the planning and design processes that SEO considerations are most important and will provide the greatest advantage.
Coding for success
The coding of a site affects search engine optimization in many ways. In fact, coding has a greater impact on a site's listings in the search engines than the site's content. Many sites -- including those of some top brands -- simply cannot be read by search engines at all. If you want to see for yourself, install the Google taskbar in your browser and start looking at the page ranks that appear when you visit various sites. Page rank is Google's assessment of the global importance of a site. It will not take you long to find major sites that have no page rank. Unless the site is very new, a lack of page rank means Google cannot read it.
The technology used to build a site has a direct bearing on search engine optimization. For example, most search engines will not read a page if a URL contains a question mark. A question mark indicates that the content is the result of some dynamic process, such as a content management system or PHP. In other words, it tells a search engine that the content is being generated automatically.
When a search engine perceives that content is automatically generated, it has no way of knowing if the content is generated every hour or only once a year. There is typically a delay of six to eight weeks between the time that a site is read by a search engine and the time at which it appears in the listings. Thus, the search engine has no way of knowing whether what it has just read will still be there when it sends a user to the page in a month or two. In short, any page with a question mark in its URL is potentially untrustworthy. It was precisely for this reason that the mod rewrite module was produced for Apache. (Microsoft has a similar module for IIS.) Mod_ rewrite enables you to lay static URLs over dynamic ones. Adding mod_ rewrite to a system before you start coding it is a small job. Adding it to a large dynamic shopping site after it is running is a major headache, and may simply be impossible.
If you read Larry Page's and Sergey Brin's Stanford University dissertation, describing the algorithms they wanted to use in a search engine, you will find that a great deal of space is devoted to the analysis of the importance of pages according to their position inside the navigation structure of a website. Therefore, how you arrange the pages and how they link to each other has a direct bearing on the search engine optimization of those pages. I have used this information to look at potential site designs and, in some cases, have found that the core content would actually rank as less important than the site's privacy policy, simply because of the way links were built to the respective sections.
There are many ways of coding the same page, and not all ways are equal to a search engine. Dynamic menus are a case in point. At present, search engines cannot run JavaScript or Flash. The only hyperlinks that they can follow are standard HTML tags. You want search engines to follow your links because that is how they find the pages inside your site. It is therefore important that you create navigation structures that they can follow. Some dynamic menus can be followed by search engines and some cannot. It depends on how they are coded. Generally speaking, menus that are dynamic because of changes to CSS properties are fine. However, those in which the target page is called via programming are not. Once again, it is best to lay considerations like this down during the design brief because changing every link in the site later is expensive.
This becomes more important if you plan on having a content management system (CMS). If software is going to be writing your copy, or code, you need to ensure that what it produces is as search engine-friendly as possible. Many content management systems generate horrific code from a search engine point of view. Once again, changing a CMS after it has been deployed is a major nightmare -- and often impossible.
Early communication for optimal results
You often won't hear complaints from SEO consultants unless search engine activity is absolutely impossible (and sometimes not even then). SEOs are used to dealing with (from their perspective) sub-standard sites, sites that are barely readable by search engines, and sites that contain many problematic elements. SEOs have learned to accept such sites, and they often have no choice but to do the best they can with the garbage they are given by customers. Many SEOs have learned that pointing out problems may result in a client's deciding to go to a yes-man who will not make waves and is happy to take the client's money for a year or two while achieving nothing.
If you want to get the most out of search engine optimization, your SEO consultant should be the first person you talk to when developing a site -- before you even write a brief and start searching for potential designers. The sites that have had the most success when I've worked with them are the ones that asked me to modify their briefs to cover the requirements of SEO. The last time I did this, three of the five design agencies that had been asked to bid withdrew because they could not meet the standards required to make a search engine-friendly site. Throughout the design and construction process, I worked closely with the coders. Most new sites don't get listed by Google at all for months. Our site was No. 1 in Google within two weeks of launch.
Bring SEO experts into the discussions of what will be built at the earliest possible moment. Don't let the design agency or your own designers get their feet under the table until you have spoken to the SEO expert.
There are many elements that need to be considered during the SEO process, and these discussions often result in the SEO expert becoming the most unpopular person at the table. Such conversations often degrade into a litany of "no, you can't do that because the search engines don't like it," followed by "no, you can't do that because the search engines don't like it." Companies have to watch their favorite design features drop like flies. Sometimes designers have even gone so far as to accuse me of trying to cripple their designs. But ultimately, it is not the fault of the SEOs; they are just the messengers. They are simply telling you the way things are. When it comes down to it, if you want your site to get listed in the search engines, you have to give the search engines what they want.
Remember: Search engines do not have to list every site on the Web. In fact, despite what they may claim, they don't even try. All a search engine has to do is provide people with a list of 10 reasonably valid results from which to choose. The lesson: You need the search engines. They don't need you. Therefore, it is incumbent upon you to understand what they require and give it to them.
Bringing an SEO in after a site is finished is like deciding to do the electrical wiring on a house after you have moved in. By bringing an SEO into the site design process, you can save time and money later. In addition, your site is likely to achieve listings that it could never achieve if SEO were undertaken after the site was already finished.
Design a site for the search engines, and the viewers will follow. Design a site the search engines can't read, and nobody will ever know it exists.
Brandt Dainow is an independent web analytics consultant and the CEO of ThinkMetrics.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Gasta News: Sky Music
Sky is set to launch a digital music store, in a bid to take on the likes of iTunes, HMV and Tesco.
Sky has partnered with major Universal Music to enable visitors to download thousands of songs from its artists including U2, Girls Aloud and Kanye West.
The service will be available for a single monthly subscription charge and users will able to both stream songs on-demand and download tracks. Customers will be able to listen to tracks through a range of devices such as iPods, MP3 players and mobile phones.
Sky, which plans to partner with other major and independent record labels, for the joint venture service, said it will roll out the digital store later this year.
Mike Darcey, COO at BSkyB, said the service is being set up to meet consumer demand for online music.
"Companies like Sky and Universal Music are well placed to work together to meet consumers' needs. We aim to offer an easy and affordable service for all UK music fans, while ensuring that artists are properly rewarded for their creativity."
Lucian Grainge, chairman and chief executive, Universal Music Group International, said, "The new Sky service will provide a compelling digital music experience, built for the ever growing digital appetite of music fans. In a world where a majority of UK homes have high speed broadband access, consumers will welcome a safe, state-of-the-art service and legal alternative to those services which exploit musicians without compensation."
Gasta SEM: SXC Marketing
Think you have SEM under control? Think again. Find out how to increase efficiency and lower the boom on the pesky problems of this popular tool.
Your SEM program is terrible. But that's all right because your boss doesn't understand a single thing you do -- he's just concerned that you are doing it and that your numbers look great.
So what are you doing wrong? First of all, stop patting yourself on the back with how great your SEM program is. You're really not that good. Seriously. Now let's move on.
A rock with arms can make SEM look good. Why? Because it's the last stop a consumer makes. By the time they type in a keyword on Google -- and it really is all about Google -- they've already decided what they're looking for. Television, radio, print, banners, events and billboards have all sucked their brains so dry that by the time they come to SEM, they are mindless lemmings.
"I must have product X. Must type in keyword to find product X. Must consume. More, more, more. It will make me happy."
What gets the credit for that last stop? SEM, of course. The consumer sees a television commercial, a print ad, an outdoor billboard and then goes online and types something into Google to find it. Voila!
Did SEM cause that sale or visit? Of course not. It is merely the conduit to it. It's like having an extra door to your store to let more people in. I always marvel at myopic managers who cut their other ad budgets and slowly see their SEM traffic drop and can't figure out why. The trickle may be slow at first, but the curve does become apparent over time. If you want to look like the hero in advertising on the brand side, go into SEM. It's just a shame the creative format requires the writing ability of five-year-old. But it's not about the creative, it's all in the strategy.
In SEM, if you are not maximizing the long tail you might as well be a rock with arms. Why? Google has become the de facto internet navigation engine. Forget portals. If someone wants to go somewhere online, they start at Google. A much smaller entity can compete in the niches of the bigger player's mass reach. It is precisely that "phenomena of choice" that makes the whole AdWords universe work. Unlike in product manufacturing, the price advantages of the long tail are huge in SEM. The fractured niche universe works here, because it's not about someone knowing your brand; it's about them knowing what they want. Going after the long tail in search is different than in product development, chasing after those consumers. As I wrote last week, the costs there can often be quite high, and your business model greatly dictates whether that is advisable.
So how and, more importantly, when do you go after that long tail? Make Google work first
The biggest problem I see with most marketers is diversifying too early. They go on MSN, Yahoo, Google and Ask simultaneously, constantly tweaking each individual program, keyword list and copy. All of that work requires duplicative efforts and drains the time on reporting requirements for your staff. They constantly question why this is working here and not there. It's not strategy, but comparative paralysis.
The Google universe is huge. It is also the biggest market opportunity. Get your entire program to work there first. Build the keyword lists, tweak the copy, expand, optimize and concentrate on making it work on Google. Keep on going down that long tail of keywords. Track performance over months. Expand to the Google Search Network; make the program work there first. Then, once you are hitting the point of diminishing returns, expand the entire program to MSN, Yahoo and Ask. This way it is a strategic approach that is efficient. You just port your program.
Now, are there going to be different performance dynamics across the other engines? Of course there will be. But getting Google to work first is essential. You will end up being able to expand faster than if you work on all platforms simultaneously.
"No time," is what I hear everyone in our industry scream. "Then be more efficient," I scream back. If you can't get your program to work on Google, it's not going to work anywhere else.
Shoot the copywriter, befriend the lawyers
Okay, this is hard for me. I am a copywriter, but seriously, using copywriters for SEM copy is like using a fly fishing pole to catch tuna. It's an efficiency nightmare. A net is coarse, bulky and blunt, but it is a lot more efficient. If you are going after the long tail, where the volume of keywords you will be using can approach the hundreds of thousands, eliminate the process of using a copywriter. A copywriter will grind your process to a halt.
But the copywriter isn't the only drag on efficiency. Remove the approval processes for all copy internally. Your director doesn't need to see it, and neither does your VP. Any approval process on copy just wastes time, a lot of time. And a lot of money, too. It is not about the individual keyword and the copy. It is about the corpus of words. You can A/B test copy within Google all day and keep tweaking it for best performers. A copywriter will never be able to provide copy that is so much better and more responsive that it overcomes the time suck from going after the long tail. The long tail value will far outweigh that. Step back and see the big picture.
In fact, the ones you really want to eliminate from the process are the lawyers. "But legal always has to see the copy!" No one is going to sue you over SEM copy because the search engines will shut you down long before that happens. They are the gatekeepers.
So what should you do with that legal department that is causing you nightmares? Well, befriend them. Sit down with them. Explain the issues, the cost to the company, the time drain on them, the speed to market issues and ask them to draft copy guidelines that you must adhere to. Can't use the word "Guarantee?" Then eliminate it from your copy and post those guidelines in the SEM department. You will save an enormous amount of money, time and frustration.
Look, a legal department once told me that we had to have a disclaimer in our SEM copy. The disclaimer was 120 characters. Ha! Show them the process, the copy and how it works. Set up a meeting with them to walk them through a single keyword posting, copy, the Google Console and then explain that you have 20,000 keywords. They'll get it.
Automate
Utilize ad optimization companies like DidIt or Efficient Frontier. You can try and go after the long tail yourself, but the only way you can effectively manage the portfolio as your keyword list expands into the thousands is to bring in some firepower. It's not about getting a click on your SEM ad, it's about getting the conversion on the back end. Remember that the click is irrelevant. What the consumer does when they get to your site is everything. Agencies like Efficient Frontier and DidIt not only have the tools to help you, their optimization technologies can adjust bid pricing for the most efficient conversion. The money you spend with them will never be more than the amount you save by using them. But it does take time for those systems to gain all of the intelligence they need to properly optimize.
I have heard stories of brands saying they tried optimization software but it didn't work. The only cases where I've seen optimization fail have been when companies did not give it enough time, were short-sighted or when companies approached SEM from a test program they did internally that showed better results. The problem with internal test programs is that anyone in SEM can make a small list of keywords extremely efficient. But when it's time to expand that list, the problem becomes unmanageable.
There are only two companies I know who took SEM in-house and ran it more efficiently. Both had unique business models and both designed their own optimization technologies for their business models. Essentially they have their own SEM agency internally. But Bob, Mary and that intern have no hope of making it scale efficiently internally unless they are given the resources to do so, and the one thing they will need most is time. If you are a small shop, agency or brand, you can do it yourself. It will just take a lot more time to scale, that's all.
Okay, so maybe your SEM program isn't awful, and maybe you're not a rock with arms. SEM is all about efficiency. It may not be the ad venue that's glamorous, and you're not going to be able to point to the television or billboard and brag as you tell your friends you did that. But if you start strategically and approach the process diligently, you will see better results with less of a headache.
Sean X Cummings
Gasta Marketing:Social Networks
Marketers have spent the last year or so carefully teetering on whether or not to wholeheartedly embrace a social media strategy. On one hand, the allure of crafting a "CEO Blog" brings with it an interesting set of challenges, and on the other hand, maintaining a MySpace page may seem like a fruitless drain on resources. Getting started doesn't have to be an either/or scenario. Instead, there's an easier, more controlled first step: Start with your own site.
When developing a social media strategy, many companies look to external tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to increase opportunities for engagement by developing a brand presence across various channels. However, in the pursuit of maximizing visibility, companies often approach their efforts much like archers shooting at targets -- a course of action as antiquated as the sport itself (no offense to any archers out there).
By forgetting to cross-promote social media activities, especially on a company website, companies miss out on the true potential of an integrated social media strategy.
For maximum impact, social media optimization (SMO) should include publicizing efforts across additional online and offline promotional programs, from the most complex (a Second Life presence) to the simple (the CEO of Zappos promotes his Twitter account on his business card).
Find us online
The easiest way to encourage visitors to check out your social media profiles is to include all the appropriate links on your "Contact" page. If you have a blog, make sure to promote your media presence (Flickr, LinkedIn, MyBlogLog) through your sidebar.
Social media hub
For companies who are thoroughly engaged in an aggressive content strategy, take your cue from the Social Media Newsroom template, provided by SHIFT Communications, and create a Social Media Hub, organizing your social media content into clearly marked areas.
If you are heavy into video, consider a multimedia gallery with all your videos available to embed and share. In addition, make a higher-quality version available for download. Include a link to your YouTube or Vimeo channel as well.
Find your social media tone
Social media efforts have weight and longevity when they provide content that is, to use social shopping site ThisNext's product review rating criteria, "smart, useful or funny." The social media community feeds off irreverence in tone and a modern approach to design. On each page, consider if the user incorporates elements of the smart, the useful and the funny.
You may want to develop specific landing pages optimized in both content and design specifically for visitors who arrive at your site from your social media channels. And please, respect your visitors' quest for content; dial back the sales speak, the banner ads and used car pitches. Visitors will see through your approach and likely rake you over the social media coals as a result.
Everyone loves to share
Copying and pasting a link in an email is so 2007. These days, visitors want to be able to share content instantly. Make all your content, podcasts, videos and articles easy to share across social voting sites and blog platforms, in as close to a one-click-shot as you possibly can. A CAPTCHA code or registration might be useful for you, but that extra step will deter some users from engaging or sharing content from your site.
Make it quick to read
In the world of internet ADD, website copy should be easy to skim and read. Call-outs, bullet points and impactful use of color all allow the eye to glean information and deduce quickly if it is worth bookmarking, sharing or giving the old Ctrl+W.
Conclusion
Companies who focus exclusively on the external uses of SMO not only deplete what time marketers may have available, but also miss important opportunities to leverage such efforts across additional channels. In particular, making a company website social media friendly should be a key component of any strategic SMO plan to help reduce the time spent on keeping so many social media balls in the air and provide an easier --although still not easy -- first step into the all-important web of influence.
Reid Carr is president, Red Door Interactive.
Posts
