Author: Nancy McCord

Occasionally we have a client who is using a low-end web host or who is self-hosting and does not have a cgi-bin or scripting enabled in order for us to install a contact form processing script. Sometimes this has lead to expensive programming charges. We do not offer programming and so we have to contract out this portion of a project adding to expenses.

We have found a service that will process the script for you on their servers and so far it looks like a clean and elegant solution to a thorny problem for some clients. You will want to click our post title to review the site MyContactForm.com. With a premium account for $24.99 per year, now any client can have a professional seamless contact form installed on their site without complex programming initiatives. I think that it is a very smart solution.

Watch out Google AdWords, Yahoo has started the rollout of their new search engine marketing interface and it is sweet!

The interface is a huge step into the future for Yahoo. Initially you may feel that it is similar to the Microsoft adCenter interface, but this one really works! What I really like is that once you get over the initial shock of the change and the new account structure, the interface is very usable.

Yahoo has created some very nice reporting features and allows you to graph dynamically several options to watch lets say clicks versus impressions, or impressions versus conversions. The editorial review process is now almost instantaneous, and the ad interface is really quite nice.

Overall Yahoo has a winner with their new control panel and interface. Best of all for clients who need regional targeting Yahoo’s really works! If you haven’t checked out Yahoo Sponsored Search lately, now is the time. Just click our blog post title to get a $50 credit when you sign up for Yahoo Sponsored Search.

One quick comment, for new accounts, I am not sure if you will automatically go into the new interface, but if you don’t pause your account until you are asked to migrate.

If you haven’t seen it yet, let me tell you, it is looking good! Yahoo’s new sponsored search platform has some very nice new features and I am looking forward to really giving it a work over.

So far only one of our accounts has been migrated, but what we have seen we like. Yahoo has included new ways to sort data and changed the account set up with the option to run multiple ads on a rotated basis from one keyword trigger list. They have included geo targeting although not as fine as Google AdWords, but a very welcome change just the same for Yahoo.

The new interface does take a bit of getting used to, it is not exactly intuitive, but at least there is help information unlike the lack of in Microsoft adCenter.

We will most likely be doing a white paper about the new changes and so stay tuned for later this month.

If you are looking forward on how to keep your website fresh and up-to-date, now is the time to think about introducing a video on your website. Videos are getting easier to make. If you have a digital camera, you can probably create a QuickTime movie of yourself and have it embedded in the HTML of any web page and serve your content easily.

Flash movies are usually better quality and will load faster and have less opportunity to be limited by a viewer’s installed software, but require a conversion from another movie format into a .swf file.

Any way you look at it, adding video to your website is relatively easy and something that you should strongly consider doing.