If you've been thinking about giving the Google Content Network another try, you aren't alone. John Ellis is testing things as well and offers up some helpful tips on maximizing your ad spend on the content network.

John writes:

Currently my content network ads are performing just as well, if not better then my search ads. Of course, that did not arrive by accident. There were several steps I took to get to a good return on ad spend on Google?s content network.

John goes on to outline four steps he feels have helped to maximize the ROI on his content network campaigns. The most useful is probably number four, the advice to exclude no converting sites.

Thankfully, Google now provides performance data on specific sites. That data allows you to see content sites that perform well and most importantly which ones are performing poorly. For example, for me content ads on MySpace bring in a lot of traffic, thus a lot of cost. However, the conversion is terrible if any at all. Therefore, I exclude my ads from MySpace.

If you are currently only running Google ads via the search network and are looking to gain more traffic, John's advice can help you navigate the waters of testing the Google Content Network. If you're already advertising on the content network (and it's best to check, lots of people are without even realizing it) then John's advice is critical for making sure you aren't spending more than you're earning.

I know. The horse is dead. I've beat it enough. But I just. Can't. Stop.

A few weeks back I wrote about the concept that content really doesn't matter anymore and that community is the new commodity of the web. I fully believe that content is still hugely important when it comes to customer persuasion, visitor education and, ultimately in providing your audience with a solid user experience. But because the web is an interactive medium, content simply isn't enough anymore.

If you missed my first two articles on this subject you can review them here:

Content is Dead. Community is King Now.
Content or Community, The Red Pill or the Blue?

I've come under heavy fire within the SEO community from those that never quite got what I was getting at. To be honest, I wasn't fully sure where I was going with it either. The articles above were me fleshing out my ideas as I wrote. Jennifer entered into the conversation with her own (and much better worded) take on what I was trying to say. You can read her article, Can't Get the (Great) Content Without the Community to get her perspective.

I had planned a third installment shortly after the second but wanted to first take a step back and listen to some of what the detractors were saying. I wanted to let all this information gestate a bit and see if I can wrap my brain around my own thoughts a bit more succinctly. I also though that perhaps my perspective might change the more I contemplated and had time to take it all in. It didn't.

If I had to boil all my thoughts down to a few words it would be this:

Content is communication. Community is a conversation.

On the web it is impossible to have a conversation without content. That is why content will never truly be dead. Every word written, every blog post, article, instant message, forum post, etc/ (the list goes on and on) is done via content. Some of it is permanent, some of it is temporary, but content is developed as the community has a conversation.

But the other thing to think about, and this is the reason that content isn't as important as community, is that content doesn't need community at all. On the surface it may seem that this makes content superior to community. Since community needs content that means content is still king, right? No. And here me out on this. Content, outside of community, is not a conversation, it's merely a one-way communication. To paraphrase an old philosophical riddle, if someone communicates and no one is around to hear (or read) it, is he really saying anything at all? The answer is a resounding "No!"

Content is only good if there is someone (other than the author and their immediate family) reading it. What many don't think about is that while search engines like content, they love the conversation. It's that conversation that happens in various places on the web that cause the search engines to notice the content in the first place.

It takes a community to "vote" content up in the search results. The community has to notice the content and like it enough to link to it, essentially telling the search engine that this content is worthwhile. Without that, the content just sits there, undisturbed. Simply put, search engines don't rank sites with the best content at the top of the search results, they rank sites that the community has determined has the best content. Those are two very different things.

Everyone loves a good conversation

As I said in one of my previous posts content gets people to the site but community keeps them coming back time and time again. If you ever read the book The Cluetrain Manifesto then you have a better idea of what I'm talking about. Online marketing is all about conversation, and you can't have a conversation with yourself. But start the conversation and build yourself a community around it.

Community may mean different things to different sites and industries, what you need to do is figure out how best to create a community for yourself. You can start by 1) create interesting and compelling content that people want to read, and 2) use that content to engage your readers and start a conversation. Give them a reason to start talking, develope a relationship with them, and keep them coming back.

The key is to create a site and an atmosphere that encourages user feedback and facilitates discussion. You don't just want to talk at your visitors, you want to talk with them.

The shift from static web site content to sites powered by blogs has been a blessing and a curse to many businesses. All that fresh content does wonderful things for rankings, repeat traffic and link generation. On the other hand, giving people who aren't trained writers access to post on your company blog can spell disaster in terms of punctuation and grammatical errors. It's with this problem in mind that Daniel Scocco writes an excellent post outlining bloggers' most common punctuation errors.

Daniel outlines six of the most common errors. He also offers up examples of the right and wrong way to tackle each issue. You'll need to read his post to get the full scoop, but here's a quick summary of them.

1. Apostrophe for Plurals
The apostrophe is used to form contractions (e.g., It's time to go) and to indicate possession (e.g., Mary's car is blue), but never to form plurals.

2. The Comma Splice
When the comma is used to separate independent clauses, there must be a conjunction connecting them.

3. Quotation Marks for Emphasis
If you want to add emphasis to a word, use the boldface type and not the quotation marks.

4. Multiple Punctuation Marks
Unless you want to sound like an overly emotional teenager writing on MySpace, you should limit yourself to one exclamation point.

5. Punctuation Outside the Quotation Marks
If you are writing in American English, other punctuation should go inside the quotation marks, even if it is not part of the quotation itself.

6. The Missing Comma After Introductory Elements
Sometimes you want to give an introduction or provide a background to a certain sentence. That is fine, but do not forget to place a comma after that introductory element.

Lest you think you stand no chance at avoiding these errors, remind yourself practice makes perfect. Few bloggers and business writers manage to avoid these errors every time they write. It's why editors (and forgiving audiences) exist. Keep in mind that even professional bloggers make mistakes like the ones Daniel mentions. In fact I'll likely have my brother-in-law (a real editor, not a "content director" editor like myself) review this post before it goes live. (Wouldn't want any inadvertent irony going on now would we?)

Part of being a good blogger is recognizing your weak points and reviewing your content to catch them. It's a running joke here at Search Engine Guide that I overuse the word "that." It's not at all uncommon for me to run a search for the word "that" before I publish a lengthy article. Without fail I end up removing half a dozen or more occurrences of it.

If you're just getting started as a blogger or realize it's time to improve your writing, Daniel's post would be an excellent one to print out and hang near your computer. A quick run through your post or article to make sure you haven't broken any of these rules can go a long way toward improving the way your content is perceived by your audience.

Something I hear now and then from small business owners and small business in-house marketers is that they aren't afraid of marketing. They're just afraid of internet marketing. After all, most people have a general understanding of how things like the yellow pages and newspaper spots work. Even if they don't run good campaigns, they probably can't end up doing a lot of damage. To them, the internet moves at lightening speed and a bad campaign can turn into a true disaster. While these are valid concerns, they shouldn't be enough to scare you off.

Mike Moran over at Biznology has a post today explaining how Internet marketing differs from old school "brighter, cleaner, cheaper" marketing. In it he explains that after doing a talk to business group about online marketing, he was approached by an "old-school" marketer who was intrigued by Mike's ideas, but was fearful of taking the leap.

This marketer explained he was used to building his messages around the benefits of the product or service, while Mike's talk had focused on addressing customer's wants and needs. It's the difference between talking at a large group (old-school marketing) in the hopes someone gets it and tailoring your message (online marketing) knowing each customer can find their way to your door via a different road.

Mike writes:

Because you can target based on problem (need), you can skip a lot of the "qualify the lead" steps. And you can target based on where the customer is in the sales cycle?search marketing keywords can reveal the early stage from the comparison stage from the buy stage. And you can answer John Wannamaker's lament, "Half of my advertising spending is wasted, but I don't know which half." On the Internet, you do. And you can stop spending it next week.

So, Internet marketing is different from the "brighter, cleaner, cheaper" marketing of other media, but not dramatically so. You still segment your markets, understand them, and send your message. You do those things differently than in traditional marketing, but you still do them. On top of that, you can target more granularly (by need and by moment in the buying cycle) and you can measure the results of what you do (the way direct marketers do).

So, ask yourself if you're ready to try to apply what you know to something know. That man, with all that experience, was ready to try. As he left me, he said, "Now I have to go wrestle with this." Internet marketing isn't always comfortable, but it's sure more comfortable than blowing your business by avoiding it.

Something to think about for small business owners and small business marketers who are just starting to read up on things like search marketing, blogging and viral campaigns.

Sure it's different, but in a good way.