While doing a Google search for my company - RedBoots Consulting - I noticed a PPC ad over on the right hand side for a Nick Stamoulis.

For some reason his name sounded familiar to me, so I did a search on my old company - Innovectra - and, lo and behold, there was the same ad, once again… the only ad. This got me thinking, apart from me, what was the connection between the two companies? My first thought was that both were SEMPO members, so to test this theory I went over to the SEMPO membership list and did some more searches - Bruce Clay, Fathom SEO, Ingenio, 360i, Flying Point Media, G3 Group, Kinetic Results, JumpFly, Performics, Sitelab International, The Search Agency, TopRank Online Marketing - each one had the exact same ad from Mr. Stamoulis displayed. Now admittedly, while virtually every SEMPO member company that I tried had the ad, I did find one that didn’t - Keller Williams Realty- but that is most likely because he scrubbed the list, or those ads were taken down. Why could they have been taken down? Well for starters that display URL contravenes the Google AdWords guidelines.

Your display URL must accurately reflect the URL of the website you’re advertising… The display URL field cannot be used as another line of ad text…Avoid gimmicky repetition

So by repeating that phone number in the display URL, it becomes invalid as attempting to go to that page pushes you to his custom 404 page (the destination URL behind it is fine, it’s the display URL that is invalid).

As for non SEMPO members, I tried a few, and he didn’t show for any of them - Commerce360, Calafia, Marketing Pilgrim, Small Business SEM, Marchex, Search Marketing Gurus - which leads me to think that my original hypothesis is correct, and this guy sourced his PPC keyword list directly from the SEMPO member list. Yes, it’s an open list that anyone can access and get, and he is a paid up member of SEMPO, but it just doesn’t feel right to me.

On Friday SEMPO sent out logo’s for all who have passed their certification program, for them to post to their websites. Curious as to what it looks like? Here you go…

released their annual Search survey this week, in it they aggregate the results of questionnaires filled out by 587 search engine advertisers and SEM agencies. This post is going to deal with details on the local portion of that survey, and focus on the responses from the advertisers, not the agencies.

The first local question asked on the survey was whether or not people had experience or interest in Locally Targeted Search Keyword Text Ads. 14% said that they’d tried it and were unimpressed, and 50% of advertisers said that they had no experience with geo-targeting, with 26% saying that they were interested in trying it out. If these figures hold, that’s a lot of advertisers that are going to be opening up in the online local market space…

The next question was about where the money was going, in other words, which engines were the most popular among those who responded. No shocker on the top 2 - Google & Yahoo, but MSN was not third, not even fourth, it came in fifth. Third & fourth places were actually taken up by 2 of the biggest IYPs - Superpages & YellowPages (given that I work with several IYPs that’s a good sign).

The last local specific question that I’m going to touch on (for more comprehensive results / more results you’ll have to join SEMPO to get the full survey) is that of how much more would people be willing to pay for better local targeting? Over 3/4 of respondents said that they’d pay no more than 10% of a premium (42% said no more than 5%). Of course that would depend on what the ‘better local targeting’ entailed. What can the engines do to improve their targeting? Well, I found out last week that MSN doesn’t just rely on the IP address of the searcher to place them, they also use their Passport system, which makes sense given that people have signed up for that service, so they may as well get use out of it. Yahoo does allow you to set your location by clicking on the local button on their main page, and Google has made it optional to add your location information, Maybe they’ll all start making this information required, and this will be where personalization is really going to improve local search.

Let’s start off with the disclaimers: I am a SEMPO member, and a member of the SEMPO In-House Committee. Now that that’s out of the way, on to the topic.

A week ago SEMPO launched their Fundamentals of SEO course, covering such topics as
History of Search Engines, How Search Engines Work, Linking & Directories, Keywords, SEO Web Design, Copywriting, SEO Roadblocks, Submissions, Tracking & Reporting, Pay Per Click I, Pay Per Click II, Current Innovations, Intellectual Property, and SEO & PPC Resources. The cost for the course is $499 for anyone, $399 for SEMPO members, and $250 for military or students (12 credits or more). I wanted to see exactly how good the course was to determine whether or not it was something that I could recommend for the rest of my team, so I signed up for it on Thursday.

On Saturday afternoon I started the course. Each topic has a lesson comprising of 35-70 pages of subject matter and mini-quizzes, and concludes with a test that requires a 74% grade to pass. You are not allowed to pass on to the next topic until you have completed the test for the presious topic. By Saturday evening I was done, with all of the tests having been completed. So what was it like? Well, having taken the Sun J2EE and the NSDJA (National Sash and Door Jobbers Association) professional examinations in the past, I would have to say that it was closer to the NSDJA exam. What does that mean? Well, the Sun exam involved studying the course material, then going to a testing center to actually take the exam, under exam conditions. The NSDJA course was open book, with the quizzes being mailed in for grading (this was 1996, it’s hopefully been updated by now). The SEMPO course was basically open book, with a button being pressed at the end of every exam, and if you failed the exam you could retake it. Also, unlike the Sun exam, the questions were the same every time you attempted the exam, so if you happened to mark down your answers, you could run back through and change those that you were not so sure about, and regrade them until you pass. Some of the exams used the same questions that were in the in-lesson quizzes, so if you had completed those, you were set for the test.

There were also some minor typo’s within the lessons themselves (I sent in a list of the ones that I noticed), but since this is new (I believe I was one of the first dozen to sign up for the course), that’s to be expected. The lessons are also slightly out of date already, as this industry moves rather quickly, discussions on Yahoo PPC in some sections talked about Panama, but not in a detailed way in all.

All in all, its not a bad start for the SEMPO institute. I’d like to see them do some randomization in the questions, and maybe implement and external testing / maximum amount of retakes policy. Then the certificate of completion will actually mean more. As for whether I’ll recommend that the rest of my team take it. I will, but probably in a month or so, when some of the kinks have been corrected. I’ll also be signing up for the advanced courses when they become available.

Update: Today (2/12) the certificate showed up at work.

Congratulations to D.F. for his 2 pieces of news, one blog related, and the other SEMPO related. More to follow when the news embargo is lifted

Update: D.F. is of course Duane Forrester, the co-chair of the SEMPO in-house committee (of which I’m a member). Duane is running for the board of SEMPO, with voting closing out this week (2/16/7). His other piece of news is that he’s putting out a real book (not an e-book) on monetizing blogs (I figure the embargo is lifted since he posted about it in his bio for the SEMPO position).