Archive for the ‘Online Advertising’ Category

Google vs. Client Apps. What’s at Stake?

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

by Eric Rowell (cofounder of www.adollo.com)

What does Google have against client apps?  Simple.  They can’t make money from them with advertisements.  The more time people spend on the web, the more opportunities Google has to make money from search advertising and display advertising.  That being said, what could Google possibly do to make people start using the web more and use client applications less?  Or for that matter, what could Google do to completely rub out client applications all together so that all users are on the web 100% of the time?  That’s simple too:  create a new standard of HTML for rich internet applications (RIAs) and create a new operating system that only runs web applications.  And that’s exactly what they are doing.  It’s called HTML5 and Google Chrome OS.

HTML5

HTML5 is the next version of HTML that is currently being developed by Google.  Just like Flash 4 and Silverlight, its purpose is to give web applications the same rich user experiences that a client application can deliver.  But unlike Flash which has to run in Adobe’s player, and Silverlight which has to run in Microsoft’s player, HTML5 will run in any browser without a plugin.  The open source version of HTML5 was released this last month (October 2009), and the official version is supposed to be released in 2012.  You can read more about HTML5 here:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-content/html-5-new-elements-new-draft-update-report-002819.php

Google Chrome OS

 Google Chrome OS is Google’s new operating system, which is scheduled for release at the end of 2010.  It will be a free operating system bundled with netbooks (the notebooks that are used only to connect to the web.)  I think it is no coincidence that Google has recently released the Google Chrome browser because I suspect that the browser may actually be a sort of beta for the new operating system.  After all, the Google Chrome OS is basically just a fancy browser.

Google’s Vision of the Future

So let’s put this all together:

  1. Google releases the Google Chrome browser at the end of 2008
  2. Google releases “beta” version of HTML5 at the end of 2009
  3. Google releases the Google Chrome OS at the end of 2010
  4. Google finalizes the specs for HTML5 by 2012

This looks like a very well coordinated set of releases if you ask me.  By 2012, Google will have a free, solid operating system and its own version of HTML which everyone will be using.  Google is obviously trying to eliminate the client application world. (Windows, Apple… be careful!)

Good luck, Google.  We are rooting for you!

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Posted in HTML 5, Industry News, Internet, Online Advertising | Comments Off

How To Increase Your Web Traffic – Five Easy Steps!

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

by Eric Rowell (cofounder of www.adollo.com)

So you have a new website, and you’re all excited to see it take off.  You give it a couple days, a week, a month, and then you finally realize “okay… apparently this isn’t going to be as easy as I thought”.  And you know what, you were right.  Increasing traffic to your website takes a lot of hard work.  Fortunately, there are five easy steps you can take to finally get your website rolling like you imagined! 

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

This should be the very first thing you do when launching your website.  First, go to google and yahoo and then submit your website using the following urls:

Google – http://www.google.com/addurl/

Yahooo – http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

Next, you need to make sure that you include the title tag, decription meta tag, and the keywords meta tag at the top of your page.  these tags look like this:

<head>
<title>Title of your Webpage</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”This is a description
of my website!”>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”these, are, keywords”>
</head>

Next, you need to make sure that important titles in your webpage use the <h> tag.  Finally, be sure that the file name of a particular webpage matches the content on that page.  For example, if you have a webpage that lists different mouse pads that you have for sale, dont name the file “www.mysite.com/page1.html”.  Instead, name it “www.mysite.com/mousepads.html”.

2. Start a Blog

Blogging is a great way to bring people to your website especially if you blog about hot topics that people will be searching for when using a search engine.  For example, if you have a dating website, you might want to blog about the dangers of online dating, or about how online dating is becoming more socially acceptable in today’s age.  If someone does a Google search for something you’ve written about, your blog can easily come up on the first page.  Those web surfers who read your blog might be interested in also buying your product or trying out your services.  Best of all, the blogs that you write will stay in cyberspace for a very, very long time!  Blogging provides a consistent stream of new visitors to your website. 

The best blogging tool by far is Word Press.  You can download it here:

http://wordpress.org/

3. Link Partnerships

Once you have your blog rolling, it’s a good time to start partnering with other websites.  A link partnership is when another website links to you, and in exchange, you link back to them.  These partnerships not only send you traffic from the other websites, it also increases your ranking in search engines.  Ever wonder how Google knows which websites to put at the top in search engines?  Well, it’s determined by the website’s SEO and how many people link to them!  Link Partnerships are very important!

4. Paid Advertising

Once steps 1 – 3 have been started, it’s time to start advertising!  There are three major ways to advertise your website:

  • Use an advertising network like www.Adollo.com to find websites who are renting out adspace (very easy and inexpensive)
  • Use Google Adwords PPC (pay per click)  (easy but expensive!)
  • Find big websites that offer advertising programs, and purchase adspace from them (very time consuming, but cheaper than Google Adwords)

I would try all three and see which work best for you. 

5. Press

Finally, submitting press releases will also yield a big return on new traffic to your website.  The best place to publish a press release is www.prweb.com.  Each press release costs about $80 to $360 depending on which packages you choose.  It might seem a little pricey, but they are very effective!  Once your press release goes live, you will instantly see your release in hundreds and hundreds of news websites and blogs.  If you can afford it, a press release at least once per month is very effective.  Even one press release published every few months is very helpful.

Good Luck!

Posted in Online Advertising | Comments Off

Help! Is there Anything Better Than Google Adwords?

Friday, September 25th, 2009

by Eric Rowell (cofounder of www.adollo.com)

Once upon a time, you may have decided that it was time to try advertising your business online, and as a result you may have spent countless hours researching methods of getting more traffic to your website.  After awhile, you probably began to realize that the dominant service out there for advertising your business is Google Adwords.  And when you read about it, you were probably thinking “Wow!  This looks like it will really work.  I can put in $100 and instantly get some traffic!”  Unfortunately, after your first ad campaign, you realized that you just blew $100 bucks for nothing.  I know the feeling!!  So what happened???

What’s Google Adwords?

Google Adwords is the leading service through which advertisers can advertise their businesses with text or image ads.  Unfortunately, when you create a campaign with Google Adwords, you have no idea where your ads are going to show up.  Yes, Google Adwords is supposed to be able to display your ads in relevant webpages pages (publishers who are using Google Adsense), but it’s far from accurate.  For example, if you’re trying to advertise your hot rods forum, your ads might show up in some website about “Hot Peppers” or “Metal Art”.  This means that the people clicking on your advertisements are less likely to to be really interested in your products or services, which means that you arn’t getting the biggest bang for your buck.

What’s worse is that there are a ton of very small websites out there trying to make money from Google Adsense by fraudulently clicking on the ads that show up in their webpages (which is money coming out of your pocket!!!)  Everyday, people with crappy websites can simply click on the advertisements that appear in their pages on multiple computers to earn a small profit.  This sucks!!

So what’s the alternative to Google Adwords?

Well, if you havn’t heard about Adollo, where have you been!?  www.adollo.com is a revolutionary new way to better advertise your business.  Adollo is an advertising network that allows advertisers (like you) to find and rent ad space from quality publishers.

So how does Adollo work?

To advertise your business, you can use the Adollo search engine to find websites who have available ad spaces that match your target audience.  The results are ordered by rating which is a measure of the effectiveness of the ad space.  You can quickly check the stats of each ad space (clicks, impressions, etc.) and even see exactly where your ad would be placed in the publisher’s webpages.  Once you have found the ad spaces that you like, you can rent them for as long as you want (up to two weeks) starting on the date that they are available.

Where do I go to create an Adollo account?

You can create an Adollo account by going to:

http://www.adollo.com/signup.php

Posted in Online Advertising | Comments Off