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I’ve been doing some research on Web 3.0 and semantic search. There are a lot of exciting and groundbreaking new technologies emerging that could reinvent the Internet. It will become increasingly important for web marketers and digital strategists to stay on top of these advances—there are numerous communications and marketing applications.

One of these new technologies is the Friend of a Friend project, or FOAF. FOAF is an XML-based method for organization and cataloging the relationships between people’s profiles. By understanding the relationships between people, data, and relationships, FOAF attempts to build a uniform method for sharing the types of information users store on social networking websites like Facebook and LinkedIn. In fact, a great example of FOAF-like technologies is the “People You May Know” feature on Facebook.

The real promise of FOAF is to create a new data model that will suggest connections between people and—more interestingly—people and information.

Just imagine the value this type of data and intelligence could have to marketers and advertisers. Online ad targeting hasn’t evolved much in the last five years. Protocols like FOAF may be the catalyst to take online advertising to the next level. Imagine being able to target a campaign based on psychographics. Understanding how your target market operates on the web is one thing that FOAF can help to define.

Clearly there are issues with the technologies. Not only has adoption been slow and held back by the confusion and inherent geekiness that’s held back the growth of the semantic web. There are also many issues about security and data protection. Regardless, these technologies are on the move and it won’t be long until the possibilities seen with FOAF (and similar protocols like XFN and SIOC) are realized.

Anyone can create a FOAF profile. You can use a this wizard to create the file and upload it to your website.

Lo and behold! Google has greatly improved its ability to index Flash content.

This improvement has some wide-reaching implications for web developers. The “use of Flash vs. indexability” dialog that is an element of nearly all web projects just may eventually become a thing of the past.

Google’s new Ad Planner product provides useful analytic tools for planning online media campaigns. According to the official announcement, the purpose of Ad Planner is to connect advertisers and publishers—providing media planners with demographic data and insights designed to help them buy targeted media. I was able to get a obtain a beta account and, from my perspective, claiming that Ad Planner is a resource for agencies is an understatement; Ad Planner may now allow smart marketers to bypass media buying agencies all together.

So what does Ad Planner do?

Ad Planner allows you to research, create, and export targeted placement-targeted campaigns. A simple demographic filter is used to create a targeted and sortable list of sites within the Google network that meet target user criteria. In addition to general demographics (gender, age, education, income, etc.), you can enter similar matching website to narrow the list.

The list of target site can also be filtered by network and ad format. After the filtering and targeting is completed, you simply check the sites you want to target and they’re added to you media plan, which can be exported to CSV for integration into your accounts via the online tool or AdWords Editor.

What are the cool bits?

Integrated into Ad Planner is a powerful demographic and performance report that allows you to gain a comprehensive understanding of website demographics. This is the most useful aspect of the tool. While similar tools exist that provide similar (and sometimes more extensive) data, Ad Planner serves it up so it’s useful and actionable.

Some of the data is clearly pulled from Google Trends, but the amount of data available is far more wide-ranging. The demographic profiles also show similar sites that fit the profile allowing you to “branch” and add sites to your media plan.

How does it integrate with AdWords?

Other than exporting and cutting and pasting, there is no real connectivity with AdWords, although it’s not difficult to see this coming in the future. The data available is useful for uses outside of AdWords integration though—it is useful for publishers and advertisers who simply want more insight into their site users. It’s a powerful analytical tool and—I imagine—will give many publishers insights into their users that they’ve never had before.

Summary

Bravo Google! You’ve provided yet another great research tool for online marketers. While there are already a number of questions about the integrity of the data and where it’s sourced, I imagine the quality will only get better. I wonder how much of the data is pulled from Google Analytics?

Ad Planner offers sophisticated marketing tools for the masses and if you are a media placement firm I would be getting nervous. This tool allows savvy online marketers with unchecked access to your turf.

Are you an Adwords beginner? Are you wondering how you can tweak and optimize your campaigns but aren’t sure where to start? Here are three quick optimizations you can apply within ten minutes that may help you get more value.

1. Apply Ad Scheduling

Ad Scheduling allows you to set what times of the day you’d want your ads to run. Setting your ads to run only at popular times of the day is a quick optimization that can go a surprisingly long way—specifically for campaigns with low budgets.

Google resets your campaigns every night at midnight. Depending on your settings, you may be burning a large amount of budget before your intended customers are even awake (you can see how this impacts your campaign by running a summary campaign report by hour of day).

Setting your campaigns to run only at prime times of day will help ensure that you are not wasting clicks. I normally set my campaigns to run from between 8:00AM and 10:30PM. This ensures that I am not wasting clicks in the early-morning and late-night hours.

Ad Scheduling is in the campaign settings page under the “advanced” column.

2. Tweak your Content Network Settings

For search marketers, the Google Content Network presents a difficult quandary—it offers the promise of increased search volume and traffic, but these users can be an unqualified group of mystery users.

There are a number of facts about the content network you should know:

• Traffic generated on the content network is usually of less quality that on Google search
• Depending on your keywords and settings, the content network can generate ten times as many impressions as Google search
• Campaigns need to be optimized to be successful on the content network

I usually recommend that beginning search marketers do not use the content network until they get a better understanding of targeting and how campaigns work. It’s important to note that content targeting is set to “On” by default. You should turn this off if you’re not sure if the content network is right for your campaign.

If you do decide to use the content network, try to tweak your settings so you’re not wasting your budget on inferior clicks. A few things you can do:

• Set a lower price for content bids. My content bids are normally 10% of what I will pay for Google Search terms.
• Use Google’s new site and category exclusion tool. This tool allows you to set the types of sites you want your ad to show up. It’s a great tool for honing the targeting.
• Check your placement reports. Run a placement report to see what sites are displaying your ads. You can use the site and category exclusion tool to avoid sites that are relevant to your campaign.

The content network settings are accessed in the campaign settings screen. Category and site exclusion changes are made by clicking the “Add” link next to category and site exclusion on the campaign summary page (this can be tough to find - here are Google’s instructions).

3. Use Geographic Settings

Geographic settings are also useful for honing your ad and avoiding wasting money on unqualified clicks. Many users are afraid of missing possible users, but if you know that a certain geographic location is not a credible area for your business or product, then—by all means—edit them out of your geographic settings.

You can access the geographic settings in the campaign settings screen. The interface uses Google Maps to allow you to select countries, states, or even custom-drawn locations.

Summary

With Google Adwords, it’s always better to start small and increase scope based on results. Keep your campaigns as targeted and focused as possible. As you see success and ROI, slowly open up your campaigns to more users. This way of managing campaigns is really what Google wants to see users do, but if you’re smart and strategic (as opposed to just diving in) you’ll see better results and a much better long-term return on your investment.

Last week I was a guest-lecturer to a business marketing class at Clark University. The subject of my lecture was Next: The Past, Present, and Future of Digital Marketing. The discussion focused on the elements of digital marketing and how the medium has changed and evolved with the advent of social networks, search marketing, and the mobile web.

I also called out several “buzz-cepts” like Web 2.0, semantic web, and others and discussed the buzz and what the realities are for marketers.

The presentation and discussion was very interesting. Of course, all the students were extremely familiar with the web but very few had an understanding of how digital marketing worked or, interesting enough, that they were being marketed to. The presentation concludes with a discussion of how to get into the digital marketing field.

My presentation is below (provide via slideshare):

Ben | Business, Search Marketing, Work | No Comments | #