Yahoo search advertisers be warned. The Yahoo TOS states that Yahoo can create ads, add, edit or delete keywords, and “optimize” your account as they see fit at any time, without your consent. Um, we would hope they would only do this in the advertisers best interest, but WOW. Don’t expect the Yahoo bashing to stop anytime soon…

Google has recently made some big claims about how Google Checkout impacts clickthrough rates on Adwords ads and overall conversion rates.  Google claims that conversion rates can increase by 40% (!) and click through rates on Adwords ads can increase by 10% for merchants who offers Google Checkout. For those who haven’t noticed, merchants who offer Google checkout get enhanced Google Checkout ads when they advertise with Google.

Of course, there is a catch to those claims. Those amazing CTR and conversion numbers are for “Google Checkout users” not for every person who sees your ad. Still, those numbera are impressive, and merchants who are looking for new ways to increase conversion rates may want to give Google Checkout some consideration.

A friend of mine was tweeting today about this post on the B.L.U.F (Big Lead Up Front) method of email communciation. In three simple steps you can make your emails more effective, more succinct, and more appreciated by anyone who receives more than 5 emails a day. Bad email communication is an epidemic in the working world, and I personally think more businesses should teach email best practices to their employees. That would then have a trickle down effect on B2B email communication, and everyone would win. And of course, any violators of the email golden rules should be publicly humiliated.

1) Use the subject line in your e-mail for initial clarity and add as much information as you can without making it too long.

2) Consistently use the “To” line for all those who you require a response from, and put those who need the information but don’t need to respond, in the “CC” line.

3) State the main point in the first sentence of the e-mail so folks don’t have to guess what you’re trying to say.

I had to chuckle while reading the post because I think most of us are all too familiar with poor email communication. The Jedi Mind trick email surfaces quite a bit, or my personal favorite, the “pass the buck” email, in which one person forwards an email to 20 other unwilling CC recipients with a simple vague message such as “please advise.”

I was just reading that Google Timeline is making it out of Google Labs and into some mainstream search results. I think it’s a pretty cool feature that could prove very useful for certain searches, particularly those that are research-oriented. School must be getting way too easy these days…

You can see an example if you search for “book of revelations” in google. Once you see the search results, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on the “timeline results.”

After that you’re taken to a page with the complete timeline results:

Burger King has captured the flame broiled essence of a Whopper and put it into a cologne for men. And of course they have a hilarious website to go with it. Genius. I can’t wait to see how Hardee’s answers. And PETA for that matter.

 More at their “Fire Meets Desire” website and a Yahoo Shopping article here. Too bad they are already sold out for the holidays, that would have been a great “white elephant” gift.

Microsoft revealed a study today that offered some insight into SMB paid search marketing behavior, and more importantly, their thoughts on the topic. The study showed that most SMBs still struggle to understand paid search engine marketing, and many had fears about price, ROI and time commitment. Some key findings:

• Nearly nine in 10 (89 percent) feared keywords may become too expensive.
• Eighty-one percent questioned if paid search marketing is the best use of their marketing budgets.
• One quarter of respondents believe paid search marketing is too complex.
• Twenty-one percent thought it would be too time-consuming.
• Thirty-five percent felt they would need an agency to help set up a search marketing campaign.

So in more “Google is getting greedy with ads” news, Google appears to be testing running ads in Google Search Suggest. Only select users will see this update while they test it out, but here is a screen grab from Search Engine Land:

From an advertiser and a user perspective, I’m not happy with this change. Usually Google strives to make changes that benefit users and contribute to thier financial success. However, this just looks like pure greed to me. It’s way too easy for a user to accidentally click on an ad that hovers right below the search box, creating not only user frustration, but a potential wasted click for the advertiser.

You can now geotag posts in Blogger drafts. Geotagging allows readers to browse content by location on your blog. This is a great feature for local businesses that use Blogger as a marketing tool for thier business. For instance, suppose you are a landscaper and you use your Blogger blog as a portfolio of your work, showcasing different lawns and patios that you’ve designed in various posts on your blog. Now you can tag each of your posts with the appropriate city and state, so prospective clients who are browsing your blog can sort by city to view landscapes that you’ve designed in their area. This will naturally help with SEO efforts as well, since you’ll suddently have a number of posts tagged with useful information about the services your business offers, plus your service area. 

As we can see below, this feature is also integrated with Google Maps:

It’s important to note that you have to login to http://draft.blogger.com to use this feature. You can read more on this feature here at the Blogger in Draft blog.

According to Google, Chrome is ready to come out of beta (already). In just 3 months time Chrome has won over 10 million users. Such impressive numbers demonstrate that there is still plenty of opportunity in the browser market. Apparently plenty of people are willing to jump ship, or at least consider jumping ship, on their current browser of choice. And so the browser wars continue…

On Monday the Google Adwords blog announced that they would permit Adwords advertisements that promoted hard liquor to the U.S. This is a follow up to their decision in the fall to permit beer ads.

“This fall, we changed our policy around beer, for the first time allowing advertisements of its sale in the U.S. via AdWords. And starting today, in response to advertiser feedback we’ve received over the years, we’ll permit the advertisement of hard alcohol and liqueurs that target the U.S.”

Or maybe it has something to do with the economy…

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to see what our local (now quasi-local) brewery Anheuser Busch was doing with PPC. I ran a couple searches on “beer” and “mmm beer.” I was disappointed to see that no one is bidding on “mmm beer” because that would be my search of choice.

Then I began to wonder if Bud Light has clickability, not just drinkability. I searched “light beer” and this is what I saw: 

My analysis is that this particular ad doesn’t have much clickability. Thoughts?