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YouTube has as of today, increased the size limit for videos from 10 minutes to 15 minutes.

Official announcement: http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/07/upload-limit-increases-to-15-minutes.html

Video is more and more common on the Web. For over a year now, Google has been selectively including videos in search results - even if you aren't specifically searching for video, which is one of the options in the left column of Google's search screen now.

But how does Google know what videos you have and what they are about? It isn't as easy as with most content where the text can be read by Google's robots.

Google has a recommended way of dealing with this. Here's their short introduction to the subject of video sitemaps.

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How can you improve your quality score for key search terms?

Start by understanding how Google determines quality scores.

The higher the click-through-rate (CTR), the higher the quality score is going to be.

There are two ways to improve CTR. Improve the ad, or improve the keywords.

It's difficult to get a high CTR for a search term that is very general. Most searchers are going to be looking for something else.

Regardless, you can use negative keywords to reduce useless searches (and useless clicks!). You can run your ads in a more targeted geographical area, to a more precise demographic, run only at certain times, or fine-tune the networks it is running to (sometimes we turn off Google's search partners, for example).

You can also narrow the match type from broad to modified broad, phrase or exact match.

All that is well and good but a badly worded ad can waste a high percentage of your impressions.

ALL the rules of advertising apply to your click ads. They need to be noticed, to interest the prospective customer and to create enough curiosity and trust so they click on YOUR ad.

One of the great things about Click Ads is you can test and measure and improve your ads over time. And not much time at that.

There is no venue where you can fine-tune an ad faster and better than with click ads. That's so true we use them as a research tool with the results then used in our organic search work and other marketing efforts.

More to come on that.

Home Depot used to have a slogan "You can do it.... We can help." This was a great tagline which had an emotional appeal and immediately positioned Home Depot. Heck, it made ME want to shop there, and I'm mostly immune to marketing.

Last year, some idiot caused them to abandon that for "More saving. More doing" - complete flub-whup-glop-dup. Meaningless garbage with no emotional connection. What are they trying to do? Make people think they are really Wal-Mart? Slogans are supposed to differentiate a brand, not sound like everyone else.

This is at least the fifth slogan they've used in the last 15 years.

Why does someone at Home Depot think periodically changing slogans is a good idea? Do they have some statistical evidence that this improves sales (answer: no they don't, because it doesn't).

Admittedly "You Can Do It. We Can Help" was way better than their other, previous slogans, so I guess I can't fault them for changes to that point.

Please people. Recognize when you have a winner.

I recently mentioned but did not explain "Quality Score" as a factor in reducing the effectiveness of click ads.

When you buy a click ad you are bidding on position. If you are willing to pay $3 a click your ad is going to be higher on the page than someone who will only pay up to $2.50 per click.

Maybe.

Because if you think about it, what about if your ad is really bad and no one clicks on it? Then Google will make less money than if they put the other guy's ad above yours. Even though he is paying less per click, if he is going to get a lot more clicks, Google makes more money that way.

PLUS it means they are delivering a better visitor experience. People want to see what they are looking for appear first, not something disrelated that shouldn't be there.

Google handles this by factoring in a quality score number (from 1 to 10) in with the bid amount on the keyword, so a lower quality score means a lower position despite how much you are willing to pay per click.

You still pay as much per click, you just appear lower on the page where fewer people will see and click on your ad.

So one way to reduce your cost per click - or in reverse, increase the number of clicks you get for your daily budget dollars, is to improve your quality score for important (high search volume) keywords.

Make sense?

So how do you do that?

Tune in tomorrow to find out.

Google has now rolled out a new match choice for keywords.

Where previously the choices were exact, phrase and broad match, they have now added a modified broad match option.

To implement the modifier, just put a plus symbol (+) directly in front of one or more words in a broad match keyword. Each word preceded by a + has to appear in your potential customer's search exactly or as a close variant. Close variants include misspellings, singular/plural forms, abbreviations and acronyms, and stemmings (like “floor” and “flooring”). Synonyms (like “quick” and “fast”) and related searches (like “flowers” and “tulips”) aren't considered close variants.

I think this will find wide use in fine tuning the fairly common situation where negative keywords aren't useful for rejecting unwanted searches, but exact or phrase matches are really narrower than you want to go.

The Book "Mind Your X's and Y's" has a chapter about what they call Brand Candy - the stylishness that can be so appealing and is an important part of many brand successes.

Would Apple products sell nearly as well if they didn't look cool?

That the Motorola Razr was so thin may have been a practical selling point. Far more important, it was a big part of makng it look great.

This didn't used to be the case. And there are still huge swaths of the economy where what I call HID - Hideous Industrial Design - prevails.

I once tried to convince a manufacturer of medical equipment it would sell better if he manufactured it in cool color schemes instead of White Only. It was too far outside his reality. No one else was doing it. Some day, if it hasn't already happened, some Steve Jobs of medical equipment manufacturing will startle his competition and send many of them into bankruptcy.

What about if you sell services? It can still apply. The Geico Gecko, their cavemen and witty advertising has obviously made Progressive, 21st Century and State Farm take notice. All of those companies now run advertising that is either based on or responding to Geico's.

They aren't doing that because Geico's marketing is ineffective.

Even if you are a small company, chances are you can use this concept.

If you are signed in to a Google account when you search, Google knows more about where you are and your search patterns and can take that into account in personalizing your search results. Sign out and your results will probably be different.

You may not even be aware you are signed in since this is done using "cookies". If you look at the upper right corner of a Google page, it'll show if you are signed in to a Google account.

Also realize that Google is constantly updating its index and is doing so faster than ever. Don't be surprised if results are different one day than they were the day before or even an hour ago.

Of course this is going to be true for so-called "real-time" search subjects such as current news. But it is still true of more static subjects. The number of pages Google indexes for our own website (FastF.com) changes daily.

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Taglines or slogans - known in the UK as "Straplines" - are another item like logos that people often put too much emphasis on.

A good tagline can distinctly help your branding.

Just don't expect it to carry a huge weight of marketing on its shoulders. It helps to set the tone and acts as a reminder of who you are - IF you actually live up to your slogan. Don't expect more than that.

And it certainly can't make people think you are something you're not.

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Bing (the search engine formerly known as "Live" formerly known as MSN) has had some success because of their connection to airline reservation systems, enabling them to serve up flight information directly in search results.

Now Google has purchased ITA, an airline reservation system, for some $700 million.

Watch pretty much the last reason to use Bing evaporate rather quickly now.

This is why Google remains the 600 pound gorilla in Search. Any time a competitor does something both new and sensible, Google includes it in themselves as fast as they can. And with their latest software, Caffeine, they can do so FAST.

I know I'm repeating myself.

It's not a question whether to do branding or not.

It's not whether you have a brand or not.

YOU HAVE A BRAND.

There is only one question:

How helpful or destructive, to your business, is your brand?

If no one has ever heard of you or your products or services, your brand is destructive then, isn't it? Because you can't get anywhere standing still.

If your brand represents something people don't want or are just bored with, if they can't remember your brand as different than any other, or they confuse it with one of your competitor's, your brand is a negative, right?

Let's look at the other side of it. If your brand is well thought-out, if it is memorable, differentiated, and represents things which are desirable, if you are taking effective action to get your brand noticed, well then, that can be quite a plus.

The name of this blog is "Market or Die." Honestly, it could just as well be "Brand or Die."

Taken to an extreme...

(A free Taco Bell crunchy taco to the first person to correctly guess the exact number of different fonts.)

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