In case you haven’t heard, WordPress released another update - called Ella (after Ella Fitzgerald) - that promotes the blogging software up to the 2.1 level. The update includes a number of new feature introductions like autosave, increased use of AJAX and a spell checking function for the visual editor.

According to the WordPress blog, Ella also fixes over 550 bugs, something that’s sure to please enterprising SEO blog hackers. Another area of interest concerning the Ella update has to do with the introduction of a search engine privacy feature. This will allow WP bloggers to determine whether or not they want their work to be pinged to or indexed by the search industry.

Because blog comment spam is a constant worry, any news concerning the Akismet plugin - the favorite WordPress comment spam tool - will be of major interest. Fear not fellow WordPress users, Akismet has also been updated and is bundled in with Ella. According to the Akismet blog, some of these changes include:

- Users can now search the Akismet caught queue
- A new counter widget showing a live count of your spam
- Discard spam that comes in on posts older than a month

Read more about the Akismet update here.

In other news concerning the blogosphere, Lee Odden released another list (Lee Odden and helpful lists go hand-in-hand) detailing what he’s learned while he’s been blogging on a regular basis. As usual, Lee’s post is an enjoyable read filled with insight many bloggers don’t have or don’t consider. Some of the highlights include:

Blogs can serve as a very effective platform for connecting online social networks and offline interactions.

A rushed blog post that is not well thought out can quickly cause the wrong kind of attention or misinterpretation.

Don’t blog when you’re mad, really tired and especially not if you’ve been out on the town.

Blogs can be exceptional tools to boost visibility on search engines as well as social media channels.

Poorly configured, badly optimized and infrequently updated blogs are nothing more than spam magnets.

These snippets are just an example of some of the valuable lessons Lee’s learned during his blogging existence. One of his main points about the benefits of blogging has to do with the social media/promotional value of a well-maintained blog - something we’ve discussed a number of times here.

However, because people still have questions about the value of blogs, apparently this lesson needs to repeated, perhaps even at an ad nauseum level.

Somebody better break out the quarters (or the arcade tokens) because Google Maps has been invaded… by Space Invaders. According to Boing Boing, some FOO Camp attendees learned the Google Maps satellite was going to pass over their area, so they created a huge mock-up of the Space Invaders video game:

According to reports, the Space Invaders image showed up on Google Maps and Google Earth. For an in-depth explanation behind this little project, check out the PlasticBag.org blog entry discussing how they did it.

While Phil Lenssen brilliantly handled this particular subject over at Google Blogoscoped, the facts bear repeating (sorry Greg):

In a move of staggeringly poor research, the Rock the Vote site updated their index page with tribute to MLK, complete with a link to the Stormfront site we mentioned last week. In their blog, the RTV braintrust acknowledged their mistake while trying to pass the buck to Google’s search results - “But appearances (and, apparently, popular results on Google) are deceptive.“

Now, far be it for me to suggest actually clicking the link before using it, but vicariously blaming Google because their developer didn’t check what he was linking to is pretty sad. A quick Google search for the Martin Luther King, Jr. keyphrase reveals the site in question is still on the first page, but they are not the first result (at least at my datacenter).

Perhaps the address of the link used by RTV was more desirable than the listings above it, but that does not excuse their lack of a follow-through link check. Furthermore, for reasons expanded on in Lenssen’s post, Google should include sites like these because I really don’t think we want a watered-down, censored-for-the-Chinese web index from the most popular search engine on the planet.

Links are where the developers come in. If you are placing links within a website you are designing, shouldn’t you at the very least know where they are going? Of course, the RTV site removed the offending links, but not before Google cached it… giving Stormfront the link love they so desire.

Perhaps we (as in every designer, developer, blogger or link builder) should just take Rand’s advice and put “nofollow” on everything.

Last week, I mentioned something about my indoctrination into the MyBlogLog phenomenon and how the service - because of their established social network - could become one of the more popular blogger tools available, if they decide to leverage blog search like Bloglines or Technorati (MBL does have a search function, but if a blog is not included in their “index,” it isn’t included in the search results).

However, it’s not all milk and cookies over at the blogger tool because of a growing concern over spam activity. Over at SoloSEO, Michael Jensen (who’s quickly becoming a MBL watchdog) has written a couple of posts about the increase in spam activity at MyBlogLog; something that can be expected when a service offers anything resembling site promotion features.

Before Jensen’s report, I would like to follow-up on a blog post I saw linking to Friday’s initial MBL discussion. Over at the Martine’s Discoveries blog, the author issued a post discussing some of her worries about MyBlogLog. Martine indicated she was worried MBLers use the service unfairly, indicated those who know how to game search engines would use MyBlogLog’s promotional aspect to manipulate search engines.

I’m not sure if WebProBlog was the focus of Martine’s post, but because mine was the post being linked to, the implication is there. Perhaps her worries focus on the fact I use a South Park avatar instead of one of my WebProNews author images. However, I do offer both this blog and our popular WebProWorld forum as communities for those that are interested in joining.

I’m certainly not trying to hide my identity and when I created my avatar; I did so thinking those that joined either of the available communities would enjoy a caricature of me because most would already be aware of who I was - not that I’m incredibly popular, I just figured those wanting to join my network already knew me… kind of like Chris Hooley’s approach (that and I really like South Park).

So while it’s true I signed up for MyBlogLog to better promote WebProBlog, I’m certainly not trying to do so anonymously or in a way that’s spammy. If I were, I wouldn’t have made my work email available to my contacts or those in the WebPro community… but I digress.

As for the SoloSEO post, Jensen reveals another method MyBlogLog can be used for promotional spam purposes - by placing links in messages to other MBL members. As of this writing, links in these member messages do not include the “nofollow” attribute, making the MyBlogLog comment feature a prime candidate for link spammers (something one such enterprising disc-jockey has already taken advantage of).

However, if you are planning a link spam campaign using the MyBlogLog comments, you’d better hurry. Jensen also revealed the MBL developers are planning to include the “nofollow” attribute, which will render these attempts as useless. Of course, that probably won’t stop those DJs avidly looking for party attendees…

Update:  As you can see from this post’s comments section, Michael has informed me the developers at MyBlogLog have already added the “nofollow” attribute to all MBL comments.

I’ve been playing in MyBlogLog today (we will probably try the image widget out on Monday) and you can just about lose yourself in there if you aren’t careful… Here are some things you may have missed that could be worth your attention.

Speaking of MyBlogLog, judging solely from today’s indoctrination, if they leverage some kind of Technorati-type of search function, they could very well become one of the more popular and important blog tools out there (if they aren’t already). While Sifry’s blog hub does have a social aspect to it, it doesn’t quite leverage it the way MBL does…

Since Google’s Vanessa Fox is in the title, I am obligated to discuss her in this post. Over at the Google Webmaster blog, Vanessa posted a year in review wrap-up (better late than never), focusing on the highlights from the Google Webmaster Central team. Besides the Sitemap.org launch, the thing that stood out to me was the month of April. The team certainly expanded the features of their webmaster toolset, giving those that participate the ability to perform:

meta tag verification
notification of violations to the webmaster guidelines
reinclusion request form and spam reporting form
indexing information (can we crawl your home page? is your site indexed?)

These were not the only added features by any means. If you compared Google Webmaster Central at the beginning of 2006 to what it evolved into as the year went on, you probably wouldn’t recognize the service when you were done. For a full recap, check out Vanessa’s post.

Other items of note:

Lee Odden released another list… and as per usual, this one is as helpful as the others. This particular list discusses the social bookmark tool update (the purpose of the post) and the services that have been added. These include widgets for Google Reader; Netscape; StumbleUpon and DZone to name a few. Check out Lee’s post to see the entire list and to download any widgets you may be interested in.

Thanks to Jennifer Slegg’s detective-like work, we also learned you can now display Google AdSense ads on the same page as other non-AdSense contextual ads (except Yahoo), provided they don’t match the look and feel of Google’s. See Jennifer’s post for an in-depth look at how you can and cannot display AdSense ads next to others.

Finally, the man who looks like the leader of the social media optimization movement - Rand Fishkin - has a post that’s featured over at the Yahoo Publisher’s Network blog discussing how you can leverage social media (of all things). It contains, as you would expect, good information for those of you looking to take part in the social media movement. I’ve covered Rand’s take on this topic in the past and his information at the YPN blog is just as valuable now as it was before:

Intended to target widely-read online portals (Digg, Fark, Yahoo! Site of the Day, Boing Boing)

Fits criteria for being viral-worthy and link-worthy (creates a discussion, sparks controversy, provides something revolutionary or is exciting/interesting to viewers)

Easy to link to, email, blog about, excerpt and share

Timely, topical and useful

See what I mean? Enjoy your reading.

In 3 weeks (from this Sunday), America’s biggest sporting event kicks off. As you can tell by little metaphor there, the game I’m talking about the NFL Super Bowl.

Not only is Super Bowl known for being one of the most watched individual sporting events in the world, it is also one the hottest spots for television advertisers - even if the cost for an ad is now over $5 million for one minute of airtime. However, is spending such a great deal of cash worth it (even if you are being exposed to such an immense audience)?

Well, if you pay attention to the latest eMarketer report, then the answer is yes, it is worth spending that kind of money for a Super Bowl ad. eMarketer explains further:

The Super Bowl advertising “halo” extends beyond just the actual game ads, however. The Super Bowl is a much larger TV advertising event.

Ad sales in the pre- and post-game coverage, plus ad sales by the network’s local affiliate stations, generated an extra 74 cents for every ad dollar spent during the game in 2006.

I’m pretty sure most advertisers in the world would be happy with an extra 74% return on every Dollar, Euro, Yen or Yuan spent (because eMarketer used the word “extra,” I’m curious what the initial return is… of course, if it’s 26% or more, the advertiser at the very least breaks even).

Another area of interest in eMarketer’s report has to do with the biggest Super Bowl ad spenders in the last 20 years. These include:

So when you see a Bud Light commercial three Sundays from now, remember Anheuser Busch has spent a quarter of a billion dollars in the last 20 years just to get your attention.

Aaron Wall of SEOBook has updated his SEO for Firefox extension, increasing its functionality by scraping Google cache dates, which can then be exported CSV-style. If you aren’t familiar with Wall’s FF add-on, here is some information about it:

Want to know why Google or Yahoo! ranks pages? If so this is the Firefox extension for you. SEO for Firefox pulls in many useful marketing data points to make it easy get a more holistic view of the competitive landscape of a market right from the search results.

If you are interested in either downloading or updating, go here.

Over at the SoloSEO blog, there’s a good post discussing five things you can do to find new SEO clients. The list features some easily executed ideas while going over some standard information - for instance, starting a blog. However, like many readers out there, I’ve always enjoyed how-to articles featuring informative lists - much like Lee Odden consistently provides.

SoloSEO’s list is no different. It has some helpful information and while the search gurus may already be aware of these points, not everyone out there is a search guru:

1. Get a website or a blog
2. Keyword List and Content
3. Local businesses
4. Pro bono work
5. Start networking

If you’d like to see their explanation for each point, click on over and check the post out.

From my growing perspective, SoloSEO has my agreement. The first point - getting a blog - has been on the recommendation block for sometime now. Almost every SEO and search engineer worth their salt has suggested doing so.

When you consider the potential social media benefits from a well-maintained blog, having one should now be considered worthy of “no-brainer” status (with no offense intended to SoloSEO’s list).

As for points 2, 3, and 4 - each of these have their own unique merit. Point 3 discusses posting a keyword glossary on your blog (yes, you should have one… see the first point) and creating quality content around these keywords in the form of articles. Essentially, what SoloSEO recommends is an audition: prove yourself on your own ground. Not only will this show off your SEO ability, it will give your newly launched blog the valuable content it so desperately needs. Using images within this content is also suggested.

The post also indicates local businesses are fertile ground for growing SEOers and if the local businesses in your area are as Internet savvy as the ones in Lexington are, then SoloSEO is absolutely right. Included in this point is a strategy for attracting these local businesses:

Set aside an entire day, about 30-45 minutes for each business. Look for their website, and check for a few simple SEO things… Then start a keyword list for each business (SoloSEO has an easy keyword site scan feature) of keywords 2-4 words in length that you would think that most people would use if they were looking for their service… include the name of their business and their domain name. Run a keyword ranking report and see how they fare in the rankings… Check out their post for the rest of this section.

While all of the above is certainly quality information, it was number 4 that stood out to me (doing pro bono work). The suggestion is to find a charitable organization or other businesses and do free SEO work for them.

While the entrepreneurial thinkers out there may disagree, SoloSEO’s idea is legitimate if for no other reason than the potential recommendation your service is in a position to receive… and we all know the benefit of word-of-mouth marketing.

The fifth point - Networking - could also be considered a standard recommendation. However, once again, there is truth in repetition. Even if you are as bad a networker as I am, just getting your face out there at some of the major conventions (complete with nifty business cards) will benefit your company. Hey, if I can meet people at conferences, anyone can…

A recent post at the Yahoo Buzz Blog about popular menu searches contains some really good information for those in the restaurant business contemplating a PPC campaign. One of the knocks on some of the bigger conglomerates is they don’t really leverage paid search as well you’d expect and this criticism rings true for the chain restaurant business.

Well, these major players are running out of excuses, especially when they are presented with logistical search data that shows people actual do search for subjects related to these businesses. The post in question - What’s on the Menu - details what chain restaurant menus are being searched the most.

Normally, data like this has to be researched using logs and other analytical features. However, because of Yahoo’s intervention, this information is available at the click of a mouse… and this data can be leveraged to initiate a successful PPC campaign if an enterprising company chose to do so. The list for most popular menu searches is as follows:

1. Pizza Hut Menu
2. Taco Bell Menu
3. Olive Garden Menu
4. McDonald’s Menu
5. Outback Steakhouse Menu
6. Chili’s Menu
7. Jason’s Deli Menu
8. Jack in the Box Menu
9. Red Lobster Menu
10. Wendy’s Menu

As you can see, data like this should be very easy to leverage when it comes to a PPC campaigns. But what if you are a competitor to one of these companies. Does this list affect you as well? In short, yes it does for the simple fact you can bid on another company’s trademarks, something Mazda did when the Google/Pontiac television commercials launched.

Effective PPC campaigns usually entail a great deal of research. Now, thanks to the Yahoo Buzz Blog, a lot of that work concerning chain restaurants has been done for you.

It’s safe to say the benefits of an effective social media marketing campaign are well worth the effort and commitment, but how about pairing these campaigns with traditional marketing (including online) efforts? Can a joint approach improve the exposure of the product you are trying to draw attention to?

In a word - absolutely… In fact, considering the excitement surrounding user-created content and how it can boost exposure, it’s almost foolish not to. The question is, how do you combine these efforts effectively?

Thanks to an SEOmoz post (which was also discussed by Cameron Olthuis at Pronet Advertising) executing a successful joint-campaign shouldn’t be that hard at all - provided you are capable of creating socially compelling content and are targeting the most socially relevant section based on the demographic you are trying to attract (like Olthuis indicated, why develop Diggable content if you are targeting housewives and soccer moms).

Obviously, one of the most effective methods when it comes to social marketing is an intelligent use of blogs. Talk about the product or brand you want to market or perhaps write a thorough guide showing how to use and enjoy your product. These types of blog posts combined with a well written, intelligently placed press release can have resonating results from an exposure point of view.

However, it’s important to be sure you are targeting the correct social area of the web. There is no point being Dugg if you are marketing to the senior citizen crowd (not that seniors don’t use Digg - it’s just that Digg IS targeted toward the younger, geek-style user). Be sure you know what social circles your target audience is using - something Olthuis emphasizes has well.

Make sure you do some research on your target audience. If you are going after the mom equation, be aware there are a lot of blogging mothers who post a great deal about their adventures in motherhood. These mommie bloggers are also quick to acknowledge products that can be beneficial to their child or their motherhood efforts; conversely, they will also crucify products they deem unsafe.

A good example of the veracity of PO’d moms comes from noted SEO specialist Jennifer Laycock and her Lactivist blog. Last year, a Delta Airlines flight attendant voiced some issues concerning open breastfeeding on the aircraft, something that didn’t sit well at all with the active mom bloggers out there. The social media’s reaction was swift, loud, and angry - especially from Jennifer.

Delta’s actions and subsequent reaction from the mom bloggers led to a great deal of negative press for the airline, something they had to respond to. Events like these demonstrate clearly the power of social media, even if it’s from an area that would be considered niche. These word-of-mouth reactions (coupled with a nurse-in at the Delta counter in Burlington, VT) caused Delta to publicly acknowledge their screw up. This is power you cannot buy.

Now imagine if these mom bloggers actually like a product you are promoting…

When you couple the potential reaction from whatever social media circle you are targeting with traditional online marketing techniques and you should have the making of an extremely effective marketing campaign. Just make sure you know which online social circle your target audience hangs out at and try to leverage them with good content.