South Florida Web Marketing Blog

Ning – The future of online social networking?
By Stephanie Chen

(CNN) — Whether you’re into baseball or backgammon, Harry Potter or heavy metal, Ning has an online network for you.

Story Highlights

• CNN talks to Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, a fast-growing Web site
• Ning lets people with common interests gather around niche social networks
• The site boasts more than 1 million social networks — some 200,000 of them active
• In March, the site added a real-time activity feed to help users stay updated

The complete story…

To visit the website:

http://www.ning.com/

New French law on Internet piracy meets skepticism

By Deborah Seward, Associated Pressr
PARIS – President Nicolas Sarkozy’s governing party rejoiced when it muscled one of his pet projects through the French parliament: an unprecedented law to cut the Internet connections of people who repeatedly download music and movies illegally.

The complete story…

Who do you want to visit your website? Knowing your target market and how to attract that market is essential in having a successful web presence.

Each website can draw visitors, but are you being found for the right audience?  Careful keyword selection is the foundation of having an optimized website and drawing the visitors that will become sales or leads.

• Did you identify the main audience that will purchase your products or services  immediately?
• Do you know what they look for in deciding to purchase your products or services?
• Does your website reflect the information those people use to make their purchasing decision?
• Are you using the best focused keyword phrases to attract that audience?

Your visitors may be at different stages in their decision making process. It is important to adjust your content in a way that supports each stage.

• Those ready to buy today
• Those close to buying but deciding on their vendors
• Visitors that are conducting their research – finding information about the product or service.
• Visitors just looking.

Think about your sales process. Try to figure out how to guide your visitors down their decision making process to take action to contact you or to purchase. What are the actions of someone ready to purchase and be sure those elements are in place.

Good Luck.

This is a recent e-mail from Google concerning the new interface that will be in place within the next 30 days.

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In the coming weeks, we’ll upgrade your AdWords account to a new web interface designed to make campaign management faster and easier.

You’ll have at least 30 days from the date of this email before you’ll be required to use the new interface to manage your campaigns. During this time we’ll continue to release additional features and make adjustments to the new interface based on advertiser feedback.

We’re working to ensure that the new interface contains all of the reports and controls you need to manage your campaigns effectively. We won’t upgrade your AdWords account to the new interface until we’re confident that it will meet your advertising needs.

Before we upgrade your account, you can switch between the new and previous interfaces at any time. Click the “Previous Interface” and “New Interface (Beta)” links in the top corner of your account (next to your email address) to switch back and forth.

To make sure that you’re prepared for the upgrade, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the new interface as soon as possible. We’ve prepared a set of online materials to help you get ready for the changes:

* Review the new interface microsite to get a quick overview of the changes and watch videos demonstrating the improvements: http://www.google.com/adwords/newinterface/
* Our “Getting Started Guide” will give you an overview of major new features and their benefits. You can download a PDF at: http://www.google.com/adwords/newinterface/new_interface_guide.pdf
* Wondering how to complete common AdWords tasks in the new interface? Visit our “How to” guide at: http://www.google.com/adwords/newinterface/standard/ads-and-keywords.html
* Search a full set of frequently asked questions in the Help Center for the new interface: https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/

The help materials above will still be available after your account has been upgraded.

We hope you find that the new interface increases your advertising efficiency and makes it easier for you to improve your results. If you have any thoughts about the new interface, please let us know by clicking on the Feedback link in the top corner of your account. And as always, thank you for advertising with AdWords!

Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043