Pay-per-click ads on Google or Yahoo are an effective and affordable way to market non-fiction books to people who are actively looking for specific information. This is ideal for small publishers and self-published authors but also works for big publishers and university presses.

A well written pay-per-click ad will let search engine users know that your book exists and lead them to your website or blog. If your landing page content is convincing, you may easily convert them into buyers.

The key to a high conversion rate and maximum ROI is to match ad text, search terms and book content as closely as possible and make the landing page extremely informative.

An example: Let’s say your book is about the body language of dogs. According to Google’s keyword tool, there’s noticeable search volume for keyword phrases such as “dog body language” and “reading dog body language”. However, currently there are no pay-per-click ads for these search phrases. Therefore, if you have written or published a book about the body language of dogs, you can easily reach thousands of potential book buyers through pay-per-click ads and significantly increase sales.

Contact me if you have questions about pay-per-click advertising for books.

Any of the following redesign mistakes can negatively impact your Google rank:

1. Change page URLs and other file names (images, pdfs)
2. Use different page titles and descriptions
3. Replace HTML-based headlines and texts with graphics or Flash
4. Make page text changes (content, formatting)
5. Change your internal link structure
6. Make changes to link anchor texts
7. Make changes to alt tags of navigational elements and images
8. Change links to external pages

In other words: Stay away from a complete redesign, if your web site is already ranked No. 1 on Google for your most important keywords phrases — unless you have an unbeatable number of quality inbound links. Even then, be very careful not to make any of the mistakes listed above, because on-page optimization is the foundation of search engine marketing success!

By Kai Blum

Seventy-four percent of U.S. consumers use search engines to look for local business information, according to Nielsen.

When they use a specific keyword, let’s say “massage” and combine it with a city name, for example “Ann Arbor,” Google will not only display the organic search results and the pay-per-click ads, but also ten “Local Business Results” near the top of the page and “number” them A-J.

The businesses with the most central physical address are usually listed first. I say “usually,” because there’s always a stray.

Google explains:

“As with all other Google search results, Local listings ranks results based on relevance. Distance is one factor that goes into our relevancy ranking, but there are many factors as well. Sometimes our search technology will decide that a business that's farther away is more likely to have what you're looking for than a business that's closer.”

There’s no doubt in my mind that distance is the most important factor and therefore you should not only use the right keywords when naming your small business, but also choose a central mailing address.

By Alicia Dorset

As you probably read from Charlie's last post, he was at BlogHer Business last week, and I was right there next to him, enjoying another great discussion from some of the blogosphere's best minds. You might be wondering why you didn't see live updates from NYC here on BlogWorks. Here's why.

In our office, I think we can best be described as techy nerds. We love new digital technology, and right now there seems to be a never-ending supply of it. Some of us have been obsessed lately with Tumblr, a microblogging platform that lends itself perfectly to live blogging, blogging on the go and sending quick updates (photos, videos, links and even quotes). Think of it as a beefier Twitter.

Damian Rintelmann, our director of web operations, is a devoted Tumblr-er (not even close to a word), and is a fan of Jon Cockle, better know as Yongfook, a web designer based in Tokyo. He's turned his Tumblr into a "lifestream," and pulls in feeds from all of the web properties he's a member of. It's a brilliant concept and shows you the potential of the platform.

I know I use Tumblr as one of my personal blogs, and Damian and Dan Nixon, one of our web producers, have integrated Tumblr into their exisiting blogs. I can't wait to see it put to use for our clients.

Tumblr wasn't the only tool we used to get conference info during BHB. Charlie was regularly updating his own Twitter feed to not only get the word out, but stay up to date with some of his favorite mommy bloggers who were attending other conferences that day.

I'm curious... What do you use when you attend a conference to let others know what you're up to?

By Charlie Kondek

I attended BlogHer Business last week in New York City. It was a good conference and a great chance to meet a lot of interesting people. Some of the folks I met are bloggers, some PR and marketing folks, and many are both. I even got to meet a few folks I've previously only known online or over the phone.

• Research by BlogHer showing the habits of women bloggers. More of them are blogging, and more frequently. Their top motives for blogging are: fun, self-expression, and to connect with others. That's just a few of their findings.
  
• Jennifer Cisney of Kodak's Thousand Words blog talked about how the blog expresses the brand. It is, simply, passion for photography.
  
• General Motors (a client of ours) talked about the success it had with an event for the Manic Mommies community that shifted perceptions about the brand and engendered goodwill between the brand and the participants.
  
• Heather Gorringe is a delightful presenter, the chief brain behind Wiggly Wigglers, creator of a web site, blog and podcast for a company that sells worms from Herefordshire, in the U.K. Ok, it's not just worms, it's earth-friendly gardening supplies of all kinds. What was most remarkable about Heather, to me, was her down-to-earth manner of reducing what are seemingly complex marketing problems to the very simple process of "having a chat." She makes the new media landscape as approachable as an English village.
  
• Graco talked about the success it had with bringing bloggers to an event, and made the very important point that while people distrust companies, they trust individuals. They communicated through their work in this space that Graco, the company, is also people, and wants to relate, person to person, to its customers.

Those are just a few of the high points, as I said. One of the big messages I got from the conference was the recurring theme that in approaching bloggers, it's not about you, the agency, the brand, the company, it's about them, the blogger, the customer. Even a casual survey of social media shows we're living in a consumer-centric world. Talk to these bloggers, as Susan Getgood said, the way you'd talk to your customers.

Information Week has a great piece by Boing Boing contributor Cory Doctorow on making it easy for bloggers to write about you. He runs down 17 tips to make your web site or the web-based part of your promotion friendlier to other bloggers, including the judicious use of permalinks and images, and a smart linking policy.

Looking for a way to get involved with Facebook applications at no cost to you? Do you like buttons? If so, "Pieces of Flair" just might be the right application for you or your client.

Playing off one of the best parts of Office Space, the flair application allows Facebook members a spot to display user-created buttons on their virtual bulletin board. Here's mine, just to give you an idea. And yes, I went over the "minimum flair requirement..."

For companies, this is a fun, easy way to toss up some branded imaging and add it to the mix. I think this could be a great way to encourage brand enthusiasts to try their hands at making their own flair for your product.

By Alicia Dorset

Thanks to my co-worker Nichole Woodcock, I've been fascinated with Brides Decide this morning, a site brought to us by super-big wedding giants the knot, the nest and Wedding Channel.com. And if you're wondering what this site's all about, the title sums it up:

When it comes to electing the 44th president, it's savvy women like us who are going to make history. That's why we created BridesDecide.com, a front-row ticket to the 2008 presidential election. Get informed, take our survey, and check out the candidates' real wedding photos (we couldn't resist!).

Thanks to the site, I now know that Ron Paul was married at age 21 back in 1957 and still wears the same tux size he did back in the late '50s. Would this help me make a decision on who to vote for this fall? Probably not. But for some of my friends whose poor brains are mushed with everything wedding right now... I bet it might.

What is useful for the site are the quick links up top on key issues, such as abortion, education, the war in Iraq and more. Clicking on a topic gives you a quick rundown of who's for it and who's against it. There are also links on where to register to vote and forums on the various wedding web sites that are currently talking politics.

While you might initially laugh at the thought of someone spending time looking through Hilary Clinton's wedding photos, Brides Decide is on to something- they realized their target audience has one BIG non-election topic on their minds this year, and if they want those brides to get out and vote, they need to reach them the best way they can.

I couldn't help but notice last night the amount of "techy goodness" sprinkled in during the 80th Academy Awards ceremony. Here's what I caught:

• After a retrospective on some of cinema's greatest hits during the past 80 years, host Jon Stewart is seen watching Lawrence of Arabia on his iPhone. He remarks that this is how movies were always meant to be watched, then flips the iPhone horizontally and says, "Oh, that's better. Widescreen!"
• Coming back from a break, Stewart and 11-year-old Jamia Simone Nash (who performed earlier in the night for Best Original Song, Raise it Up, from August Rush), are found playing Wii tennis on the main stage's projection screen.
• Making a reference to Nicole Kidman's upcoming movie roles, Stewart uses the Internet Movie Database as his source for her "upcoming unnamed project."
• And of course, let's not forget about blogger-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody taking home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Juno.

I'm not the only one noticed some prime tech product placement. Check out ZDNet and Engadget for Oscar tech coverage, too.

The Writers Guild of America strike and Michigan’s lovely winter weather had me craving television that wasn’t of the reality variety. I consulted my trusty friend Netflix, and that’s how I started watching The L Word.

One of the characters, Alice, is mildly obsessed with the connectivity of the lesbian community (think Six Degrees of Separation). She keeps a chart of the various known hook-ups of her friends and the Los Angeles lesbian community. In the second season, Alice pitches a radio show based on the idea. In the fourth season “The Chart.” as it's called. becomes a social networking site that allows women to list people they’ve dated, creating “Constellations” and “Solar Systems” of connectivity. A funny plot point includes a woman named Papi uploading her hookup list, which was so long that it crashes the server of the site.

Pretty much every group of friends has its own ‘chart,’ right? Whether it's written down or not, we all know who's slept with whom, who's part of whose serial monogamy, and who's part of everyone else's serial non-monogamy. It's part of the glue that holds all forms of social networks together.

We were first introduced to Alice's chart of hookups in season one, episode one of The L Word. Since then, it's been the connecting thread throughout all of the relationships on the show. Whether or not the characters have slept together, they're all together on Alice's wall. The underlying friendships in the group are the real foundation of all these connections, and that's where OurChart comes in. Until now, there's never been a central meeting place just for us — lesbians, dykes, queer girls, gay women, high femmes, butches, drag kings, bois, transwomen and transmen — however we define ourselves. On OurChart, you can connect yourself via friendships and relationships to the wide world encompassing all these people and more.

You can invite your friends, make new ones, and share your favorite stuff, your innermost thoughts, and your most superficial leanings. That's pretty standard. But on OurChart, your network of connections will also form a visual ‘chart’ a lot like Alice's — only this one is dynamic and interactive. And it's yours.

The site includes blogs, content about The L Word, and allows you to watch episodes from the current season. When you sign up, you have the ability to upload photos, manage your own blog, and allows you to manage friends and “friends plus,” which can include ex-significant others and anybody you may have gotten romantic with. And it’s not just for women; there are men on the site, too. The most interesting part of the site is that you can launch your own chart where you can see how you’re connected to everyone on the chart.

The L Word creators built a truly fun, interactive social networking site that not only promotes their program, but gives groups that might feel left out by traditional social networking a chance to share their voice and meet new friends.

Each year, millions of dollars are thrown into advertising for the “big game,” otherwise known as the Super Bowl, and the day after everyone seems to have an opinion about their favorites. With a little help from social networking, this year people were talking in real time.

“TwitterBowl” was introduced to the masses this year as a “real-time social experiment” in which viewers at home get to chime in on ads. The tweeting was in hopes to spark interesting conversation and see how popular the online network has become.

The little trial was dubbed a success with more than 2,500 people participating, about 625 messages an hour. I’m sure their comments are a marketer’s dream, no matter how good or bad. Take a look at what people were saying about Dell.

No word if Twitter will be making this an annual event, but it really sparks intrigue into how social networks are adapting to become part of mainstream events. Tweaking this concept for the upcoming elections would make for some interesting fodder.

My friend and former co-worker Clayton Closson invited me to guest blog a post at the blog he manages for Quicken Loans, What's the Diff? The theme of the Diff blog is the difference between average and excellent. Clayton encouraged me to write about something personal and important, not necessarily having to do with business or PR or anything else. So I wrote a heartfelt post about one of my passions that I'm kinda proud of. I admire What's the Diff for its broadness of topic and diversity of perspectives. Doesn't always have a business goal in mind but, rather, shows the company's interests in plain old humanity. I hope you'll check it out.

When a blogger wrote to Target complaining about imagery in an ad, Target replied:

“Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets."

The New York Times had the story recently. Target's stance in this instance is a mistake both in media relations and in influencer marketing. That's no surprise, since blogging is sometimes a combination of both journalistic reporting and consumerist word of mouth. In this case, Target is simultaneously making bad press for itself and alienating customers and potential customers.

Speaking of kerfuffles...

I recently used the word "kerfuffle" in a sentence. Spell-check asked me if I meant "kafuffle." I had to admit I usually only use the word verbally and wasn't sure how it was spelled, so I looked it up using various free online dictionaries.

Kerfuffle is a word, according to World Wide Words and Merriam-Webster's (which points out it's original Scottish spelling, "carfuffle"). But sources like Urban Dictionary claim "kafuffle" is a perfectly valid word, too.

Setting aside the interesting and thorny problem of tracking the use and shaping of British expressions, I think it's interesting to note that in this day and age of free, user-driven information sources, incorrect spellings, abbreviations and slang will become just as valid as, or at least compete with, canonical interpretations of words and concepts. Certainly, we've seen this with Wikipedia and the like, and we're also familiar with the pros and cons of this approach.

Wottapalava. Or do I mean "what a palaver?"

boingboing's Cory Doctorow has an insightful take on a recent kerfuffle between a Ford Mustang fan club, Ford Motor Company, and Cafe Press. In a nutshell: CafePress told the car club they could not use images of Mustangs in their fan materials. But then Ford let CafePress and the fan club know that this was, in fact, allowable, and a misunderstanding involving the legal wing of Ford. Doctorow's conclusion:

There's a couple of interesting lessons for Ford and CafePress to take away from this. For Ford (and companies like it), the lesson is surely to tighten the reins on your legal department. When they send stern letters to online service providers that threaten legal action, the natural outcome is that OSPs are going to get gun-shy — and they'll tell your fans that they can't do anything and blame it all on you. The usual overkill approach from corporate counsel will come back and bite you on the ass.

For CafePress, the lesson is to take your customers' side when the law is with them. Even if Ford did tell CafePress to kill the BMC calendar, they'd have been wrong. The BMC calendar is legal — even without Ford's blessing — and when you protect yourself from legal liability by shutting it down, you incur PR liability by seeming like a bunch of candy-asses who can be bullied into submission by a memo from some white-shoe legal goon from a Fortune 100. Word gets around.