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The keywords you choose for a content ad campaign should play a different role than they do for search ads. That’s a point that’s often tough for search advertisers to grasp. In today’s Content Advertising column, “Content Ad Campaign Keyword Strategy Revisited,” David Szetela outlines a new method for building content keyword lists, that will enable you to gain ultimate control over the destinations for your ads.

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Three weeks ago, I wrote an article entitled, “Online Reputation Management Requires Cabinet War Rooms,” that reported on the Brand & Reputation Management session at last month’s Search Engine Strategies conference in London.

Last week, I got some feedback from Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross, the chief reputation strategist at Weber Shandwick and author of Corporate Reputation: 12 Steps to Safeguarding and Recovering Reputation.

She said: “Thanks for the roundup regarding the panel discussion. I would add that companies probably do not need ‘War Rooms’ today and instead incorporate reputation monitoring as a regular course of business. Not just when in the throes of crisis. In addition, reputation recovery does not end in six months or when the negative comments leave the first page of Google. From the work we have done at Weber Shandwick on reputation, it takes nearly four years to recover reputation once it has been tarnished. Reputation recovery and management (online and offline) are never-ending. Thanks again for your thought-provoking comments.”

Now, I agree that companies should incorporate reputation monitoring as a regular course of business. But, they often don’t – until they are in the throes of crisis.

And, I agree that reputation recovery shouldn’t end when the negative comments leave the first page of Google. But, that’s often the first sign that a crisis has passed.

So, how do you convince your CEO to include offline and online reputation management as a line item in the marketing budget before it’s too late? And, if it takes nearly four years to repair a bad reputation, then how can you earn credibility for yourself and your SEO or PR firm by showing early signs of progress?

As I conducted a few news searches to find some recent information for this post, I was impressed to discover an optimized press release entitled, “Global CEO Turnover Rises 10 Percent in Past 12 Months According to New Weber Shandwick Study.”

“Given stagnant markets, fierce competition and a complex business environment, it is not surprising that CEO turnover has risen sharply,” said Weber Shandwick’s Chief Reputation Strategist Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross in the release.

Wow. Talk about writing a press release that will get found by your target audience for relevant news search terms. And just what should CEOs do to hang on to their jobs?

“In today’s uncertain economic environment when information and news are at a premium, CEOs would be wise to actively over communicate and regularly meet employees and customers face-to-face,” said Weber Shandwick President Andy Polansky in the release.

Okay. So, I know several SEO firms that “get” online reputation management, But, here’s a PR firm that has gone beyond spouting empty platitudes about the topic and has conducted an ongoing analysis of “CEO Departures” to put “leadership communications” on the agenda.

But wait! There’s more!

I conducted another news search and found an interactive case study in BusinessWeek entitled, “The Analysis: Restoring Reputation.” Written by Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross, it tells the story of how Xerox’s reputation has enjoyed a successful turnaround since 2001, with CEO Anne Mulcahy pulling the strings.

Okay. Now, I’m really impressed. Leslie provided constructive feedback on my article about online reputation management. She was quoted in a press release that should catch the attention of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies. And she’s written a case study about how Xerox’s CEO has turned around that company’s reputation – for BusinessWeek.

Online reputation management shouldn’t require a crisis to become a line item in the budget. And it can enhance your corporate reputation as well as help you recover from a tarnished one, which can help your SEO or PR firm earn credibility with the CEO.

And, don’t just take my word for it. If you need a second opinion, check out what they’re doing over at Weber Shandwick.

As the New York Times detailed yesterday the Chinese government is activating legislation that may give problems to the possible Microsoft Yahoo purchase. The new Chinese law would “give Chinese regulators authority to examine foreign mergers when they involve acquisitions of Chinese companies or foreign businesses investing in Chinese companies’ operations. Beijing could also consider national security issues, according to a report by the official news agency Xinhua.,” NYT reported.

Given that China now has the world’s most internet users and all three of the major search engines are involved in the country there could be impact for all of them.

Apart from the Alibaba ownership that Yahoo has, Google also has invested money in Baidu. These economic influences on the engine could impact censorship decisions and other actions.

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Sure there are lots of global news stories in Bloomberg News today. For example, “Verizon Faces Fight With FCC’s Martin Over Rules for Open Wireless Network.” Bloomberg.com says Verizon Wireless faces a new challenge after beating Google Inc. in the biggest U.S. mobile- phone airwaves auction: scrutiny from regulators who expect the carrier to build a truly open network.

While we get just as excited about “scrutiny from regulators” as the next guy, that’s not the best story of the day.

Nor was it “Houston Topless Clubs May Turn to Pasties After Losing 10-Year Legal Fight” detailing Eric Langan’s plans to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court with pasties.

And while we’re impressed by Ivy League students with hearts of gold turning Spring Break into a “Guilt Trip” for all the other Spring Breakers in Cabo (”Students on Spring Break Skip Mai Tais on Cabo to Serve at Bowery Mission”) we’re wondering why Ivy League students need to fly to Cabo to volunteer in a soup kitchen.

The story says “It’s lunchtime at the Bowery Mission, and seven Cornell University students are serving rice, chicken and gravy to homeless men staying there to learn job skills and conquer addictions.”

They must be serving the homeless with a “Silver Spoon.”

Here’s the one story we loved:

Global SEO expert Nick Wilsdon and his wife, Anna, starred in the headline news story, Russia’s `City of Brides’ Triggers Baby Boom After Love Quests by Bloomberg reporter, Yuriy Humber.

It’s a great story. Don’t miss it. The Bloomberg News photo shows:

English-Russian couple Anna and Nick Wilsdon in their home in Ivanovo, Russia, on Feb. 7, 2008. This year in the town of Ivanovo, babies are being born faster then ever, and deaths are slowing down. With any luck, the town known as Russia’s “City of Brides” will start to increase in population for the first time since the Soviet era.”

Courtesy of the exceptional photographer, Dmitry Beliakov of Bloomberg News.

The value of Google’s stock has taken a bit of a beating recently from their high of $747 last year to yesterday’s close at $438. After doing my weekly news review, I saw a lot of articles questioning many actions Google has been doing lately.

Is this pervasive critiquing of Google having an impact of investors’ confidence?

The articles I read this week came from a wide range of sources - not just limited to the search industry specific ones we all know within the industry. (I was at a offline/online media event on Thursday where the majority had not heard of SEW, AussieWebmaster or for that matter Danny Sullivan!)

The firing of people from DoubleClick supposedly slated for April 1, according to ValleyWag, should show investors that they are lowering expenses and thus increasing profits for them. But the general public usually sees the company laying people off after an acquisition as Gordon Gekkoish. The eventual impact should be seen in the coming week as this actually happens.

I was having dinner one night during SES NYC last week, I noticed a friend there who does angel investing and asked him what Google closed at that day to determine who in my party was paying. He knew to the penny as he told me he was shorting Google (now I know where he gets his seed capital).

Then I see an article this morning from the UK Guardian stating Google’s PPC numbers were slowing. Given January had shown zero growth and February’s growth was low single digits compared to previous growth being as high as 30-40%, this spending and growth wall could be a major hurdle for the company’s valuation.

“Google maintains that the deceleration is a consequence of its strategy of focusing on quality. The Silicon Valley firm has been trying to eliminate accidental clicks and has been working with advertisers to make sure that links relate closely to users’ search queries.

But the slowdown has contributed to a 36% slump in Google’s shares since the beginning of the year and analysts are divided on whether the company’s confidence is justified,” the Guardian stated.

This is also challenged a little by recent complaints by advertisers over some of these methods of improving the quality. The $10 Minimum Bid push has lost Google advertisers. The arbitragers squeezing a few pennies from a click have had to drop away (leaving the really good ones at it a cheaper range), but so have the companies that provide legitimate inexpensive products or services very relevant to the people searching from that perspective.

The impact Google is having on other online industries may also be impacting their brand and through that their value. The analytics industry was impacted by Google’s purchase of Urchin and the development of the free services of Google Analytics - so even a popular free service gets flak, and their mistakes are made public quickly as was the case with GA information being displayed in the Google organic results..

There will be an additional backlash from the DoubleClick acquisition. It is going to be hard for the soon to be unemployed to find jobs in the industry as Google launched Ad Manager which offers ad serving for free and thus will hurt the job market in the industry as the competitors lose market share.

The words of Larry Page’s recent Annual Report letter reflect the perspective the founder sees his realm of “users, customers, Googlers (our employees), and investors who help bring everything that is Google to life”.

Part of Google’s success has been in its ability to maintain the “church and state” separation of organic listings and paid search ads. While that is to be commended, isolating customers from the users pool is a little naive - people advertise on Google because they have used Google and want to advertise to similar users.

Google would not still be in business if they had not been able to monetize the popular search engine. When they first started the company was nearly sold to Excite.com for a million dollars, because they could not monetize what they were doing.

With revenues of more than $10 billion last year - 90% of which came from paid search advertising - you would think the customers would take top billing, but the behemoth of search still sees search through the eyes of its users.

” We continue our effort to extract more and more real meaning from the web in order to help people find the right answers. We recently improved universal search, integrating different types of relevant information, such as video, maps, news, books, images, and more, right into your search results.

Sometimes you don’t get a good answer to a search because the information simply isn’t available on the web. So we are working hard to encourage ecosystems that can generate more content from more authors and creators. For example, we recently announced an early version of a tool called “knol” to help people generate and organize more high-quality authored content.”

Watch out Wikipedia your space is soon to be seriously invaded.

And one has to wonder if Google is getting into the conference and hotel business next. Their proposal to develop a parcel of land in the Mountain View industrial park for office space, conference center and a hotel is lodged with the local council.

Wonder if they plan on starting their own search conferences, with attendees staying at the nearby hotel? Are we to see a conference advertising tab soon in our AdWords accounts?

Click to read the rest of this post…

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