The article is titled "A Startup's Guide to Generating Online Ad Revenue" and discusses how new online businesses can monetize their website by selling advertising - a topic of vested interest to the readers. The article appears in the August issue of Website Magazine. If anyone would like to subscribe to the magazine (it's a controlled-circulation trade publication that's free to anyone in the ad business), here is the subscription form.

Supposedly the browser is faster than IE and Firefox. However, 25% of people still are using old versions of IE and haven't bothered to upgrade to the newest IE version...so the jury is still out on whether Google's browser is a game changer and to what extent it will steal market share away from Microsoft (Microsoft's IE has 75% of the market).

But getting those search engines to pick up and distribute your message requires strategy. The reality is that writing for search engines is slightly different than writing for human editors. That's because search engines use algorithms to determine press-release relevance and ranking. Knowing some of the capabilities and limitations of Google will give you a leg up in getting your press elease indexed by Google and read by your audience.

Below are some standard best practices for how to optimize press release for Google

1. Google displays only the first 65 characters (including spaces) of the headline. Anything after that, Google puts an ellipsis. Get the point across up front. Don't bury it at the end of the headline, because Google won't show it.
2. Google refreshes its PR database every 30 days. Therefore, to stay top-of-mind, you should do a release every month.
3. It's important to pepper the release with the search phrase or phrases under which you want to indexed. This will increase the relevance of your release to the search query. Make sure to include the search phrase in both the headline (first 65 characters) and also in the first sentence of the body. Google displays up to 160 characters (including spaces) of the first sentence, so make sure to put it there.
4. Adding the keywords in the headline and in first sentence has the added benefit of bolding the keywords in the release, which subsequently will elicit a higher click-through rate, or CTR. This best practice is similar to Google's AdWords advertising program, in which ad copy that includes the keyword will drive more click-throughs than those without the keyword.
5. Add links that point back to your Web site. This not only drives traffic, but has the added benefit of helping increase your site's organic ranking. In ranking sites, Google takes into account how many inbound links there are pointing to a site-the more the better.

And while I'm at it, let me take a moment to discuss Google's ranking method. Google's ranking algorithm is complex, and only Google knows the recipe of its closely guarded secret sauce. However, inbound links (what Google calls Page Rank) is a large measure that determines the ranking in organic results.

MISTAKE ONE: Not Differentiating Consumer Search versus B2B Search
The general search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) get the most searches, but are they the right type of searchers? Stretch your B2B budget further by advertising on B2B specific search engines. Here are a few key players (if you have more you'd like to add, feel free to let me know!): 

• Business.com – a horizontal business search engine and directory
• GlobalSpec.com – a leading engineering search engine 
• ThomasNet.com – a leading manufacturing search engine

MISTAKE TWO: Not Writing Compelling B2B Copy For Search Engines
First, the way you use copy in your B2B listings is critical. If you’re trying to attract searches in a particular phase of the buying cycle, tune your copy appropriately. Second, be aware that for your industry, consumer marketers may share some keywords. For example, “lumber” is both B2B & B2C whereas a search for “hardwood lumber molding” is more likely to be B2B. Same with “java” – are we talking coffee or a computer language? Third, make sure you follow each search engines editorial and creative guidelines. This is challenging because you need to compel the prospect to clickthrough, yet your ad must comply with editorial standards controlling what you can say and even the punctuation you can use.

MISTAKE THREE: Not Balancing Organic and Paid Listings
If you get plenty of free listings, there’s no need to go the paid route, correct? Wrong – what happens if a change in how search engines rank pages leaves you out of the top results? Well, if you buy your way in, there’s no need to worry about the free results? Wrong again! Why not gain free traffic if you’re relevant?

MISTAKE FOUR: Not Measuring Success
You can't manage what you don't measure, right? At the very least, you can check your rank at search engines for particular keywords. Remember, analyze your Web site's log files to see the actual terms people use to reach your Web site and then buy those terms. The holy grail in measurement is to make the ultimate jump and close the loop by measuring sales conversions and ROI. What statistics should you really care about? In B2B, a conversion may not necessarily be a sale – it may a lead in the form of a newsletter signup, whitepaper download, webinar registration, etc...

Make sure you download Slack Barshinger's free whitepaper on business search engines. Slack Barshinger is a leading B2B marketing communications agency. Their paper identifies a number of business search engines (both vertical and horizontal) and reviews the pricing models of each.

Compaq Presario V6310

I did a quick Internet search and read some tech forums. Evidently the problem is being reported by many people. It appears the problem is a hardware issue -- the computer's temperature runs too high and then fries various components, including the wireless adapter, graphics card, and motherboard. The malfunctioning wireless card is unfortunately the beginning of the end. Owners are reporting all sorts of additional issues including the screen becoming permanently blank or the computer failing to even boot up.

Subsequently, HP has extended the standard warranty by two years and will replace the V6000 free of charge (including all shipping costs). HP also has an updated bios version that you can download as a preventative measure. But if your computer is already experiencing some problems, this new bios won't help. You need to turn in the laptop to be repaired.

HP is sending me a shipping box. They say it'll be in the repair shop for 7-10 days. I spent a couple hours backing up my data, since HP is replacing part of the motherboard. I'll be updating the post with new developments.

Trevor and Kari - Mice

Question: What do these have in common –  a 12-foot cat, ukulele, clown, and dragon? Answer: They all appeared in Ann Arbor's second annual FestiFools Parade. The parade featured an eclectic assortment of larger-than-life puppets, creative musical instruments, wild street performers in colorful costumes, and over-the-top performance acts. It was Mardi Gras artist-style.

Hundreds of people, maybe even a few thousand, lined the streets clapping and cheering. And dozens of
Festifools Paradeparade participants sang, dance, played, and performed with puppets. It was spectacular. In my opinion, the star performer by far was Trevor's Kitty. Kids couldn't keep their hands off the cat. Everyone wanted to play and pet. Trevor and Kari did a fabulous job rallying the crowd. It was the most fun I've had at an event all year. Fellow Ypsilanti blogger Mark Maynard has a cool video of the cat on his blog.

You're a Web site owner and want to begin earning advertising dollars? Here are two options: Google AdSense and affiliate marketing. Google AdSense delivers text-based ads targeted to the content of your site. You can customize the look and feel of the ads by choosing colors, fonts, and ad size.

With affliliate marketing, you select advertisers you want on your site. You then earn a commission each time one of your reader responds to the advertisement and performs a pre-determined action (such as making a purchase or signing up for a email newsletter). Both Google AdSense and affiliate marketing have a low barrier to entry and can get you quickly ramped up with advertisers.

As your traffic grows, you’ll want to scale your advertising opportunities to attract higher tier advertisers. To that end, I encourage you to get listed in Nielsen//NetRating's @Plan database or ComScore's Media Metrix database. These are leading media planning research companies and are used by interactive ad agencies for planning which sites to run on. Planners and buyers run reports showing which sites have the highest concentration of their target audience. Getting listed in the database makes it easier for agencies to find you when your audience matches up with what they’re looking for. Bear in mind publishers must have a minimum number of page views and unique users to get entered in the databases. Also, publishers don’t automatically get listed – they need to pay for the privilege.

I've worked at three interactive agencies, and we've always used these tools as a critical component in identifying key sites to advertise on. What tactics have worked with you to get advertisers?