Thread Title: Forrester report on corporate blogs Thread Url: http://forrester.typepad.com/charleneli/2004/11/forrester_repor.html Thread Description:

When And How Businesses Should Use Blogs

Although Weblogs (blogs) are currently used by only a small number of online consumers, they've garnered a great deal of corporate attention because their readers and writers are highly influential. Forrester believes that blogging will grow in importance, and at a minimum, companies should monitor blogs to learn what is being said about their products and services.

From Charlene Li's blog.

Russell Beattie also made some notable comments about blogs, content & communicontent today..

Seems everytime i hit bloglines someone is saying somthing about corporate blogs these days...

Thread Title: grnidone starts a corking thread Thread Url: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2567 Thread Description:

"Because the company I work for makes a percentage of the total spend, we could, conceivably bid these companies against each other for the same terms, thus increasing the spend for both companies, and thus making more money from both."

I think this one will be a hot thread, many of the issues raised will related to PPC's older and wiser brother SEO. I'm expecting a great post from Andrew Goodman even though I'm sure I won't agree with a single word of it.

Thread Title: Drop Shipping question Thread Url: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=4563 Thread Description:

Following on from the earlier Dropshippper List post, here's a thread over at Digitalpoint that's just too good to tack on as a comment to the previous.

Experienced dropship marketers talk about the pros and cons of what can be a very saturated market. This from lorien1973:

I drop ship a lot right now - I'm moving away from the model slowly but surely. If a product can be dropshipped - rest assured there are 10 million internet stores who are selling it. So you immediately throw yourself into a very big pond. Happily, 9.9 million of these stores are part time; so they aren't competition - but they keep their prices so low (Cuz they are only doing it for a little extra cash) that it can lower the overall value of the products you want to carry. Be wary of that.

Truth is; most distributors who make you carry inventory have a VERY low opening order ($300 bucks or so, and $100 minimum orders after that), so its not hard nor does it take a lot of space to get more unique products that you can mark up to your heart's desire or what the market will bear (or is it bare?). And if you ask nice, some of them will even dropship some of their products for you (after you have done your opening order) - especially the expensive ones that take up room or cash. If you go that route, you can also outsource your warehouse to fulfillment companies who will ship for you so you don't have to do that (and its not too expensive either).

Thread Title: Lists of dropshippers Thread Url: http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=7510 Thread Description:

Whether you're an affiliate looking to up your game or a store owner looking to add extra products to your online offerings then you may have looked into dropship merchants. Finding lists for dropshippers can be a toughie right?

Linked above is a nice list from WPW member carbonize followed by various other contributions to the growing collection. Nice, thanks carbonize!

Thread Title: Local Search Marketing: A Huge Untapped Market Thread Url: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2516 Thread Description:

Quite possibly, im becoming a bit of a Bob Massa groupie, I dont know, the stuff this guy writes just seems to strike a chord with me and this thread is no exception.

Chris Sherman posts about a searchday article which sparks some interesting predictions from massa on the future of the small SEM shop in the context of local search and changing business climates:

If you are reading this now with a cigarette hanging from your lips, Your'e 20 to 40 + pounds overweight, you're not sure if it's raining or not outside and you haven't eaten anything that was not cooked for you, came in a paper bag or prepared in a microwave in the last two weeks, if you are not comfortable with getting out of bed before noon, taking a shower and putting on some clean clothes appropriate for the business community, you may be in a position to watch some young whipper-snapper take your market share Being #1 based on your ISP's location in Google for search enigne marketing may get you the call, but the guy willing to show up or invite the prospect to an office, (I guess the bedroom could be an office if you mnde the bed, but I'd feel a little uncomfortable talking to you in your pajama bottoms while sitting on your bed), is the one who will be able to getting the real deals.

Spoooky!

mburgess also puts forth some theories/plans on how local search could be used to pre-test national campaigns. I tend to agree with the basic concept that this will change everything...

Thread Title: affiliate tracking system accounting for recurring sales Thread Url: http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=30997 Thread Description:

This thread is a mental self promo fest and that's no bad thing at all when the orignial poster, kidmercury is asking for recommendations on affiliate tracking systems. It'd be kinda lame if you didnt hear from the developers themselves right?

Well, MyAffiliateProgram.com and AllAffiliatePro.com are both in there giving their best pitches and provided you take that into account, it's an interesting read for anyone considering opening an aff. program.

Would be nice if a few customers of these programs turned up though, i'd love to hear a less biased account of both programs...

Thread Title: Traffic Logic - What do you think of it? Thread Url: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=1993 Thread Description:

I'll have to admit that my knowledge of Traffic Logic, part of InfoSearch Media is slim at best. They've certainly been tarred with a bad brush for their practices in various forums and blogs but is this just a case of people not understanding or agreeing with the business model?

Some outstandingly compelling arguments in favor of the group in the threadlink above has me looking at them in a slightly different light. Not necessarily a good light, in my experience there is rarely smoke without fire, but definately a different light.

Check out massa at msg9

In my experience, virtually every prospect calls you up telling you that what they want is to be in the top of the search engines. That is not true. That is not what they really want. What they really want is for me to make them money and they simply believe that they have to be in the top of the search engines to do that.

If you don't believe me just ask anyone who has ever had a client at #1 for the keyword the client said he wanted to be #1 for, only to have that client cancel. Why? The #1 placement did not make the client money. At least, not enough to make it worth the fee.

My question is, would you really spend your time trying to convince a prospect that he is mistaken and doesn't REALLY want your kind of services and explain where he is misguided? Or would you congratulate him on his being smart enough to have selected you to ask and then explain the features and benefits of your service? Is that deceptive?

Swiftly backed up by DaveN

Thread Title: Ethical Standards and The Search Engine Marketing Industry Thread Url: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2254 Thread Description:

Yep, ethics again...

Really, i do wish the whole search community would just grow up a little and open it's damn eyes. I fully expect to get tarred and feathered for my post in msg3 but what the hell, it's as important to me as it is to SEW member doppelganger who wrote the article being discussed: What the Search Engines Can Do which is the first part of a series of well written but dreadfully naive articles...

So get on over there and roast me, or do it right here if you like ;-)

Thread Title: Payments method... I need advice... Thread Url: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=3156 Thread Description:

DP member cdx is having problems with PayPal (sound familiar?) - In here, your going to find some nice links to alternatives to PayPal for the smaller biz. As i've been taking a lazy look at this myself over the last couple of months I thought it a pretty useful thread. Sure we've discussed this a dozen times already but there are a few things in here i'd not heard of before so here ya go...

Thread Title: Is the benefit of writing completely personal email outweighed by the time involved? Thread Url: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum12/1887.htm Thread Description:

Nice thread over at WMW with some pretty good tips on how to write convincing and appealing personalized link requests. Starts off dull but gets much better...

Thread Title: SEMPO Announces 3 New Advisory Board Members Thread Url: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=1889#post16156 Thread Description:

Grehan, articlulate as ever, writes a scathing post on the actions of the oh so amusing SEMPO.

"So, I think it's fair to ask, if the search engine marketing community at large, and that's the search engines, the vendors and suppliers as well as industry pundits and notable names are happy to represent themselves in forums - how is it that the very people who nominated themselves as industry representatives are the only people who feel they're above it?"

"As a would-be industry representative body, the only descriptive word which springs to mind for me, is: pathetic"