Google loves "authority" web sites. Sites that provide valuable information and expertise, and don't just try to sell stuff.

And to show their love, Google will reward authority sites with high search engine rankings, and lower cost per click AdWords keywords.

Sound good?

If you're ready to be the authority in your industry, here are the five major characteristics of an Authority Web Site:

1. High Quality Content – good, useful stuff
2. Large Quantity of Content – lots of pages
3. High Frequency of Updates – so Google sees the site is always growing and staying current
4. User Friendly – with intuitive navigation and helpful links
5. Good Reputation – as determined by other authority sites linking to you

The easiest way to create your own Authority Web Site is by blogging. My entire askHowie site is constructed as a Wordpress blog (it was free, except for some design of the header and some custom hand-holding, er, programming for special features).

If you're interested in attending a 3-part blogging webinar, which I haven't decided whether I'm going to offer or not, please reply as a comment below so I can get a sense of the amount and intensity of interest before I create the webinar.

Posted via email from askHowie

Peter Bregman is looking for case studies for his upcoming article in Harvard Business Review online.

He needs examples of small businesses that have gotten more business recently, preferably sales they took away from larger companies. He’s working on a theory of why smaller is better in this economic climate – increased trust, better relationships, higher moral, more control.

If you’d like to be featured in the article, post your story to comments. As much as you can, pinpoint the factors that led to your success.

If Peter selects your story, he’ll ask me for your email address so he can contact you directly. So your submission means you give me permission to share your email address with Peter.

Here’s a link to Peter’s page on the HBR site, so you can check him out.

I know he’s on a tight deadline, so don’t delay if you’d like to participate.

psu-google, originally uploaded by Howie Jacobson.

Here I am wearing the t-shirt sent to me by Jim Jansen’s AdWords Challenge class at Penn State. I tele-lectured for them last week, and got this cool shirt as thanks.

Hey, PSU’ers, post any AdWords questions to comments and I’ll answer them as best I can.

Two news stories for you today. One about the progress of my eBay consulting auction, the other a bit I heard on the radio related to the 50th anniversary of the Barbie Doll.

eBay For Dummies Authors

First, the eBay auction. (If you haven’t heard, I announced via this newsletter last week an experiment. I auctioned 45 minutes of phone consulting on eBay for a starting bid of $3.95, no reserve. The auction expires on Thursday, March 5, at 1:24pm EST (less than 24 hours from now).

UPDATE: The final bid was $255, well below my going rate. I’ll be discussing these results and running another experiment next week. Also, I’m planning a fundraiser for a New Orleans rebuilding project, so I have to get creative about the best way to leverage my time and intellectual property to send maximum moolah down to NOLA. More updates soon.

I know that auctions tend to have a flurry of bidding near the end, so I’m not drawing any conclusions at this point. But I did want to update everyone (and maybe generate more bids in the process ;).

So right now, the highest bid is $109.50. There have been 24 bids so far, a few from repeat bidders, but most unique.

Let me put that in perspective.

It’s about $4 less than a vintage football player bobblehead/nodder "Touch Down" bank (6" high, 4.5" wide and 3" deep). The player is wearing a black and gold uniform with the number 00. The football itself is the bank. Some flaking and missing paint.

Humbling.

Oh, and here’s another one:

My highest bid is slightly less than the top bid for Little Miss Myra, a handmade teddy bear. I quote from the auction:

"Presenting Little Miss Myra a beautiful, unique & adorable OOAK bear. Myra is fully jointed, a beautiful pink colored mohair on a darker background, antique shoe button eyes, waxed a sealed thread nose, thread mouth & claws, wears a wonderful hair bow and has antique crazy quilt paw pads.  Her head & limbs are stuffed hard & her belly/body is smushy & so very wonderful."

Currently, Little Miss Myra can be yours for $111.

Please know I mean no disrespect for the artists and fans of these particular items or genres. I’m just amusing myself by considering the opportunity cost of an AdWords consultation.

So if you think that the current high bid of $109.50 for 45 minutes on the phone with me is a bargain, you can go to eBay and put your money where your mouth is.

When Barbie was a German Sexpot

The daughter of Barbie creator Ruth Handler was interviewed on the radio last week, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the best use of plastic since nose plugs. She told the story of how Barbie came to be.

Up until Barbie, all commercially produced dolls were babies, and the girls (and occasional secretive boy) who played with them had to be content with feeding, changing, burping, and cooing. Ruth saw a need for a doll who could embody aspirations beyond motherhood, a grown-up doll who could be the main character, rather than just a crying, gurgling lump (my words, not hers).

But no toy manufacturer would consider making a doll with – gasp – breasts.

And apparently there were tooling challenges with making a plastic doll to Barbie-esque dimensions.

So while Ruth Handler tried to imagine what her Barbie would look like and how it would be manufactured, meanwhile in Germany a naughty, suggestive cartoon character named Lilli had been created in plastic as a kind of gag-sex gift for men.

Li

A reader wonders:

I created my first Adwords image / banner ad last night.  I’m curious to know what sites Google might be displaying that on so I can see how it looks.  Any idea how to figure that out? 

My reply:

You can find out that information in the Reports section. Go to the Reports tab, click Create a New Report.

On the next page, select “Placement Performance Report.” Fill in the time frame you want, choose campaigns and ad groups, add or remove any columns you like, and then create the report. (Make sure you choose “URL” rather than “Domain” if you want to see individual pages.

A reader whose entire online business consists of a $20 book on a health topic wants to know how she can compete, AdWordsily, against big pharmaceutical companies bidding on the same keywords.

My answer: Read the rest of this entry »

A reader reaches out for help:

What does it mean if Google AdWords says your average position is 5.8, when in fact, it’s not? When I type in the keyword [actual keyword omitted], it doesn’t show on the first several pages of results. What’s the scoop?

My response:

Read the rest of this entry »

I spoke this morning with Imal Wagner, my publicist, about ways to get online and offline PR for any size business.

I have to admit, when I hired Imal to sell loads of books for me, I just did what she said, showed up for interviews, and didn’t pay much attention to what she was doing and how she did it.

So this 25 minute call was my attempt to get up to speed. AdWords is great, but when the keywords are too competitive or expensive, or when you’re just starting out on a small budget, it’s nice to have ways to get traffic that just require focus, empathy and creativity, without the credit card.

In this interview, Imal shares her expertise about becoming an "A-list" blogger in your industry, pitching the media on your stories and interviews, and getting booked on radio shows.

Pay special attention to the story about the kid who was living in his parents’ basement and was trying to figure out how to pay for his education. If Imal’s methods worked for him, they can work for the rest of us as well.

Imal’s been working with high-profile clients for a long time, and today she’s opening up her practice to folks who want to learn how to do their own PR, rather than hire it out. Rather than send you to a long sales letter about her 12-week group coaching program, I invite you to email Imal (say that 5 times fast!) to set up a conversation to determine if her program is right for you.

You can reach her at imalwagner AT gmail DOT com.

Oh, and here are the links Imal mentioned about where to find radio stations:

wsradio.com – compendium of Internet Radio Shows

radio-locator.com – searchable list of every radio station in the US and Canada

I recently found a great example of an opt-in form, from Remember the Milk (an online to-do list service). Here’s a short video showing what I love about it:

What other web pages have great opt-in forms? Post your favorites to comments.

According to today’s New York Times, retailers spending money on expensive display ads are receiving less bang for their buck than advertisers using text ads (i.e. AdWords). Ironically, the article appeared below a banner ad for Grand Auto Theft:

And just to make sure the expensive ad was extra-annoying, it kept unfolding over the article:

The good news? Most big companies, like the ones mentioned in the Times article, still are working off the old TV brand-building mindset online. For smart advertisers, the downturn in online advertising is an opportunity – cheaper clicks, less competition, and more chances to be friendly and helpful, rather than in-your-face and annoying.