by Jen Salamandick

Welcome to Search & Tonic, where we like our links the same way we like our drinks: strong. Each Friday we will present links from the past week that wowed us, offered a unique opinion, or taught us something brand new.

While everyone in #YEG was tweeting about the rolling blackouts and the oppressive heat on Monday, I was hobbling around aimlessly after suffering a casual knee injury during a ball hockey game. I say casual because nothing spectacular was going on, and come to think of it, I wasn’t even near the play at the time I took that fateful step.

Covered this week: Lowering CPL and Impriving ROI; SEO in 2012; Personalizing Marketing Emails; and Corporate Blogging Mistakes.

Top Ten Ways to Lower CPL & Improve ROI

Here’s a checklist of things you should do when asked to “fix” an under-performing adwords campaign. I’m certainly finding it useful! It kind of speaks for itself, check it out if you spend any time working with AdWords.

The State of SEO in 2012

MozCon 2012 is right around the corner and this article provides a list of some of the major SEO changes that have taken place since the 2011 conference wrapped up. A series of questions are posed to a panel and my favorite question was:

How much should an SEO be a “real” marketer?

If you set your sights solely on optimizing keywords and building as many links as possible without first understanding a client’s brand then where will you end up in the long run? Maybe as a “victim” of a future panda/penguin/piranha update.

Cyrus Shepard suggests that “Ideas can be more powerful than spreadsheets.” I agree, but spreadsheets have their place as well. I just think that they should play a supporting role and that marketing should play the lead role.

Should You Personalize Marketing Emails?

Cheaptickets emails me four times a day week.

Cheaptickets personalizes some of these emails by addressing me by my first name in the following subject line:

Jennier, here are your top cheaps of the week.

Jennier is so close to Jennifer and I’m pretty sure it was my mistake anyways, so I can’t be too mad. What I don’t get about this whole concept is that even if something has my name in it, it doesn’t make it personalized. It’s still just a form email with my name chucked into it, is it not?

Now if Cheaptickets sent me an email that said:

Dear Jennier,

We noticed you had been looking at flights to New Zealand for the 2012 holiday season. Are you super excited to see the lovely pohutukawa trees, Jennier? We’re excited for you to see them as well. We don’t usually offer discounts on travel to New Zealand during that time, but because your hair looks so nice today we are willing to come up with a special package just for you! For the low price of $1,000 dollars we are pleased to offer you and your family round-trip airfare and 4-star accommodation in Mount Maunganui for three weeks in December. Please enter this code on the payment page to receive your discount: XHSD34BD82.

Thank you for being you, Jennier, we truly appreciate your business.

Love Always,

Cheaptickets

Now that is what I call personalization. For me, seeing my name in a subject line or email body means absolutely nothing, but I’m not offended or put off by it either. I probably shouldn’t hold my breath until I receive an email like that from Cheaptickets though.

Blogging Mistakes Corporate Bloggers Still Make

Blogging once or twice isn’t hard. Blogging consistently and blogging well can be. It’s a serious commitment you make and faltering on that commitment devalues the blog. Wildly irregular postings may as well be no postings at all in some cases. If a company tries to blog once in a while when something really big comes up, the audience will be considerably smaller than that of a company who blogs consistently about a variety of topics.

This article also scoffs at the impersonal nature of some corporate blogs. Posts coming from  the author name, admin or posts that seem to be talking at a reader instead of attempting to speak with a reader are impersonal. I think that letting employees write with character and opinion is much more beneficial than insisting that your employees maintain a company voice. Have one of those “the following views are those of the individual not the brand” messages if need be!

The other kicker is a lack of value proposition on corporate blogs. I find great value from lists. Top Ten This, Five Best Thats, etc. Lists are easy to read and the titles for list-style posts generally show me what value I will gain from clicking on the article link. Consider the two potential article titles:

How We Make Our Clients Feel Special

The Top Ten Ways To Ensure Your Clients Are Satisfied

The first one is very “me focused” and I get the impression that it will come off as braggy and pretentious. The Top Ten title however, makes me think, “Hey! Neat! Ten ways we can impress our clients!”