• Looking to be a guest blogger on a popular SEM blog? Look no further! Michael Gray from Graywolf’s SEO blog is looking to accept guest posts to his blog. He only has a few requirements; the post must be educational, informative or entertaining and must have correct grammar!
  • Arnold from Search Engine Journal writes about Google’s new keyword tool including search volume data in additional to the green bars. With the new search volume data, advertisers can easily check the estimated number of search queries on Google and its search network.
  • Microsoft adCenter is no longer Microsoft adCenter; their PPC program is now called Microsoft Online LP. This should not affect your MSN accounts but we just wanted to make you aware of the name change.
  • We love a good metaphor! And Scott over at Ion Interactive is conjured a good one: How air travel is like search marketing and landing pages. Sure, this may sound a little far-fetched, and yes, it’s an extended metaphor but it works! See your paid search marketing in a new light.
  • We’ve tested 7Search in the past but the results have never been very positive. However, they have recently revamped their services, platform and website. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to open a new account with them today but it’s always helpful to keep tabs on the smaller, alternative paid search avenues.
  • This week, Yahoo! explained their “budget smoothing” system. Basically, this is how Yahoo! paces your ads out through the course of the day to even out your budget. Since there is no way to turn this off like in AdWords (Accelerated vs. Standard delivery), Yahoo! suggests increasing your budget or bidding on low CPC/long tail keywords.
  • Over at Search Engine Roundtable, Barry wrote today that “adCenter begins to outpace Yahoo!” Basically, a few prominent PPC advertisers discussed in forums that their PPC spend increased in adCenter for June, surpassing their spend for Yahoo!. While this is interesting, even more so being reported by 2 advertisers, I don’t feel this is the signal that Yahoo! is down for the count. MSN is still the 3rd tier spender and performer for all of my accounts. Besides, there are countless factors that go into your PPC spend! Bids, budgets, etc… I’d like to take a look at all of the facts before agreeing that “Microsoft is beating Yahoo at the search ad business.”