Posts filed under 'Reviews'

A Plan, a Primer, Panama!

Page Zero’s Mona Elesseily Masters the New Sponsored Search

You might think me old-fashioned and condemn the size of my carbon footprint, but I have a confession: I like paper. I’m the guy who likes to have the WordPress for Nimrods book propped up next to his computer rather than search the online help. I just like it all there. So sue me.

But if the sales of “…for Dummies” books and “Complete Idiot” guides are any indication, I’m far from the last paper-holic out there. Luckily, for demi-luddites like us stuck ‘tween the digital and the doorstop, there are options, even for Yahoo! search advertisers.

Page Zero’s Mona Elesseily, a search maven whose conference appearances always draw enthusiastic crowds, has just released her study, Mastering Panama: A special report on Yahoo’s new search marketing platform.   

Mona’s 96-page wire-bound booklet serves as a handy reference guide to almost everything that’s new in the new Sponsored Search, and then some. To get the true insider’s view of the product, Mona worked with some of our top minds here at Yahoo! Search Marketing. Mona also undertook considerable research, speaking to third parties and agencies in the search marketing sphere.

“Mastering” acts as a Panama primer, first laying out the basics and then diving in deep to offer more detail and strategies for making your campaigns a success. Although we’ve made a few additions to the system since the book was first put to bed, it nevertheless offers a solid foundation and considerable strategic insight that you’re unlikely to find anywhere else.

Punctuated with “Helpful Hints” and “Action Items,” Mastering’s eight chapters each take on a different aspect of the new system, with extensive material on navigating the interface; features and functions like geo-targeting, forecasting, fast ad activation, analytics, the ad quality index and match types, and so on. (In fact, it gave me a few forehead-slapping moments mysef, and I work here.)

More importantly, the book offers tips on how best to use these features and functionalities, as well as pitfalls to avoid. Bonus material includes sound advice on how to smartly get more keywords into your account, how to integrate your keyword and landing page strategies, tried and true lessons in copywriting, and specific ad copy recommendations.

Mastering Panama: A special report on Yahoo’s new search marketing platform, is available from Page Zero Media for $87.00 (and likely tax-deductible as a business expense).

—Michael Mattis

Boosting Your Buzz

Cat Seda’s new book offers a blueprint for Web marketing success

We’ve known Catherine “Cat” Seda for some time. A local gal who’s made good here in the San Fernando Valley, Cat has been an ocassional adviser to Yahoo! She’s also a veteran search marketer, author, columnist for Entrepreneur magazine, one-time skeleton racer and self professed “speed freak” whose ready smile can be seen just about anywhere search marketers, web publishers and other Internet entrepreneurs gather.

In her first book, Search Engine Advertising: Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales (New Rider, 2004; $29.99), Cat detailed the ins and outs of paid search advertising, a work that, three years later, still stands the test of Internet time. In her new book, How to Win Sales and Influence Spiders: Boosting your Business & Buzz on the Web, Cat takes on the whole gamut of Web marketing and PR, from optimizing your pages for organic search to using social media to re-invent yourself as a guru in whatever field you choose to delve.

Pithily written and with copious, real-world examples (not anonymous case studies) How to Win Sales and Influence Spiders is a fast-paced yet comprehensive jaunt into the art of business promotion on the Web. Tightly organized and accessible, the book offers actionable information on every one of the book’s 240 pages.

I found Chapter 4, “Networking in Social Media” most intriguing, perhaps because it’s so new a phenomenon, but also because of the way Seda uses it to strengthen her main thesis. Namely, that every expression you make online or off should be a marketing expression that promotes your business or brand. Even something as simple an online profile created for a social media site like del.icio.us or MySpace can and should be an integral part of your overall marketing effort, and Seda shows how to create an effective one: Choosing a marketable URL, customizing your profile page design, creating compelling content, setting a friendly tone and, not least, leaving a “link trail” and more.

True, some experienced search marketers and publishers may find some of the basics old hat. But these offer the necessary grounding and a springboard for the gems that come later. If you think SEO and paid search are the be-all and end-all strategies of getting noticed on the Web, you need to be set straight. And this is the book to do it.

—Michael Mattis