MarkAttwood.com

It’s only a tiny glimpse of the beautiful Bae de Somme from 2000 ft flying what can best be described as the bastard offspring between a tent and a lawnmower, but mon dieu, what a view!

My camera was one of those with a flip out viewfinder, and keeping it open in the wind at 100 knots was virtually impossible, but I think the footage does capture some of the excitement and splendor.

Whoah! Google say this on their new Google Instant service:

“Feelings of euphoria and weightlessness are normal. Do not be alarmed”

And are they ever right. No TV campaign. No fanfare. Just another amazing enhancement to Search called Google Instant which, in a nutshell, shows instant search results (including PPC ads) as you type based on their finding that searchers read faster than they type.

Take a look here for full details.

What does this mean for impressions and CTR and therefore adwords costs?

What does this do to long tail search? This is what Matt Cutts says on his blog:

“The search results will remain the same for a query, but it’s possible that people will learn to search differently over time. For example, I was recently researching a congressperson. With Google Instant, it was more visible to me that this congressperson had proposed an energy plan, so I refined my search to learn more, and quickly found myself reading a post on the congressperson’s blog that had been on page 2 of the search results.”

They say “The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you don’t have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search.””

So they’ve saved us all the hassle of clicking a button. Which apparently will save 2-5 seconds per search. As one commentator sagely put it on youtube:

“i didnt have to press enter?

HOLY SHIT HOW LAZY ARE WE GETTING?!??!”

Here’s the offending video (complete with patronising-geek-voice):

Also: “Another shift is that seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback. You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want. In time, we may wonder how search ever worked in any other way.”

Does this mean that Instant will reduce the total number of keywords in a market because it will be making predictions based on what you type and therefore “train” the search market to use the keywords Google tells you are likely to get you better results, or more relevant results based on other peoples’ search behaviour?

It seems that this will reduce the long tail opportunity for internet marketers, although I do take on board Matt’s points and am less pessimisitic about this than some other blog posts I’ve read today.

The question to me really is: what criteria are they using for the order in which to put the predictive results? My colleague suggested this could be based on search volume, but what if the criteria is based on income potential to Google?

Hmmmmm. Dark?

Especially as it seems that an impression will now be counted after 3 seconds. Surely this will reduce CTR (cost per click) which will increase CPC (costs per click) across the board?

What do you think?

Ultimately, this is another major feat of engineering and if you can avoid being cynical about Google allows search to be even easier and more accessible to tempt all those internet dwellers that have never ventured outside the looming walls of Facebook to take a peek.

As far as internet marketing is concerned, I believe it’s business as usual – just stick to producing quality valuable content and you’ll be just fine

P.S. Google instant also gives me a good excuse to get Bob Dylan on the blog…

Watch this…

(Sweden winning the world cup is the only thing far-fetched about this. Mind you, I’d have disregarded it entirely if they’d shown England winning it )

“Internet Video Marketing – Your Complete Guide to Success” – A one-day seminar in November 2010 in Manchester, UK.

This is going to be an amazing day of learning for anyone struggling to get to grips with the whole video thing.

We’ve been using video online since 2005 – we were way ahead of the curve back then, and we’ve got thousands of videos in production today – it’s that important to our marketing mix.

But – I know there’s a “mental technical hurdle” with video marketing, as there is with much of SEO and online marketing – that’s why we’re doing a seminar on the subject – to help you get over this hurdle, take some action and make more profits, by doing video RIGHT.

We’ll be covering all this stuff:

- how to design and write a script for maximum SEO and CRO value
- when to hire in professionals and when to DIY
- how to upload video content to sites such as YouTube and Vimeo for maximum SEO value
- how to automatically syndicate your videos across hundreds of video content sites for maximum traffic
- how to frame and direct a video for maximum retention
- what length should your videos be?
- how to use video to automate and personalize parts of your sales process
- how to record simple videos using powerpoint presentations and your laptop
- how to source music and sound effects and use them for maximum effect
- how to edit your videos
- how to use visual graphics
- how to use video to emotionally connect with your audience
- how to test video effectiveness on conversion rates

And what’s even better – it won’t just be me doing the talking!

We’ve got the guys from iVideoProduction coming down – Alex Roberts and Mark Gill. Not only are they mega-talented (Mark directed a film starring Martin Freeman and Tom Hollander last year), great business colleagues and friends, they also run a video production company and have taught the subject of videography at Salford University for many years.

(They also both hammer me at tennis, but that’s another story).

Alex and Mark will demystify all of the technical aspects of video making, answer all of your technical questions and help me produce a live marketing video for one lucky seminar attendee that we will then edit and send on it’s merry way.

So, you are guaranteed top quality content that will help reset your video marketing button to maximum profits!

Interested in coming?

Just email IVMSeminar@markattwood.com along with:

- your full contact details
- preferred dates in November
- Any video marketing questions you want answering

UPDATE: here’s a perfect example of a testimonial video that I just got emailed (21st October):