What exactly is a digital destination? It’s really more of a concept and an ideal than a specific set of ideals — at least at this point.

That’s what makes digital destinations so ephemeral, you know when you’re on one, but you’re not exactly sure what makes them so memorable.

A Brief History of  Interactivity

With a digital destination, there is interaction. Websites are not traditional documents. This is the culmination of mass communication and documentation.

Take it way back and there were cave drawings, which served their purpose — though there was a slight issue with portability.

Fast forward, you have handwritten scrolls. These were definitely more portable, but there was now an ever so small issue with reproduction.

Fast forward, you have the printing press. Now there are documents for the masses, but they are in bound books, not really interactive. Not only that, but these books weren’t cheap, so people didn’t want to ruin them.

Fast forward, you now have affordable printing. People can now slightly interact with their documents — at least to the extent that they can draw on them.

Fast forward, you now have the Internet. Finally, we’re at the stage where people can interact with documents, can influence their design and can truly experience the content. That’s just it, for people to learn, they don’t need to just sit there and quietly absorb it — they need to experience it!

This level of interaction sets the basis for a digital destination — more on what exactly that means later.

iProspect, an SEM firm, has just finished a survey that holds some interesting tidbits for the SEO/SEM industry.

The main highlight is that 68% of search engine users typically click results on the first page of search results, compared to 62% in 2006, and 60% in 2004. You read right, 68%!

If that’s not convincing enough to get some good SEO going on your site to rank on the first page of the SERPs, consider that only 8% of search engine users review more than the first three pages prior to clicking on a result.

On the one hand, we have over 2/3 of people clicking on something in the first 10 results and on the other hand, 92% of people will only go three pages deep maximum — if you’re not at least in the top 30 for what your trying to rank, you’re out of luck.

Granted, this just enforces exactly what we’ve been saying at Amodon, you need to have good SEO, good content and great design so that people will come to your site, you’ll rank high and the search engines will take notice.

But we’re not ones to say we told you so…but…well, you know.

Here’s a few other interesting things from the post:

• 49% of search engine users who continue their search when not finding what they are looking for change and/or re-launch their search after reviewing just the first page of search results, up from 40% in 2006, and 42% in 2004
• 37% of online users associate appearance at the top of search results with a company’s leadership within its industry or category, up slightly from 35% in 2006 and 33% in 2002

Microsoft clearly means business when it comes to their acquisition of Yahoo!. Steve Ballmer (the Microsoft CEO) threw down the gauntlet in an open letter to Yahoo! where he basically said, “You have three weeks to take the deal before we start talking to your shareholders who will want to take this deal because it will make them money.”

Yahoo!, trying to play coy, responded saying that it’s not that they’re not interested in the deal, it’s just that they think big M should pay more. Right, because they’re sliding stock is really emblematic of a company who can make such lofty demands.

Why do I care though?

If, and when, this deal goes through it’ll shift the whole SEO/SEM industry because it’ll go from one where Google dominates all and Microsoft and Yahoo! are distantly nipping at its heels to one where suddenly Microsoft is much closer to Google. This will dramatically change the Internet landscape.

Honestly, I’m excited for when this happens. It’ll be an exciting two horse race with more fun for everyone online.

Saving money on business expenses is almost always something that business owners are trying to do (except for those owners who don’t care about money, but they’re a strange lot anyway). One of the easiest, and most effective, ways of saving money is by diversifying spending on marketing expenses. At first, this seems the opposite of saving, since diversifying inherently means doing things multiple ways, but stick with me here and it’ll all make sense, I promise.

Save Money By Targeting Specific Demographics

The thing with traditional advertising and marketing is that it’s passive and only attempts to target specific demographics. For example, placing an ad in the phone book will certainly increase the likelihood of people seeing your ad, since most houses today have phone books. However, the people who look through the phone book might not necessarily want your product or services, since this is everyone who has a phone book, not a targeted group.

You can remove some of this problem by using television or radio ads. Each of these mediums have a bit more interactivity, since people can choose the genre they like. Consequently, your ads can target genres, but they can still get more precise in their targeting.

Online you can cater to the exact people who you know are interested in hearing what you’re saying. If you’re talking about the firing of Bob Lobel or offering trips to Waycross, Georgia, you can specifically target them on the Internet. This way, you know the people who come to your site are interested in what you have to say and sell.

Emphasize Good Marketing Spending Can Save Money

That’s the fantastic thing about having a good website: the people who are interested in your products will find you — if your site is set up properly. You can’t just toss up content and hope that it’s going to get the job done; you need to make it so that people can find you.

This is why it’s good to get SEO help from a professional firm. The short-term investment in getting a good site will make you money in the long-run. Acknowledging that the Internet is the next big advertising medium isn’t that hard. You just need to know what to do with that knowledge.

Once you recalibrate your marketing spending to bring more emphasis online, you will see a greater ROI. It’ll bring narrowly targeted people to your site who are already excited about what you have to say — and they’re already closer to buying. Get out there and get cracking!

Ah yes, Google is tweaking the rules for their ads starting on April 1st (no joke!). Now the display URL will have to match the destination URL of the advertisement.

The implication for tracking URLs is not good. Tracking URLs are important when you’re doing display advertising so that you get credit for the clicks that you get. However, consumers don’t like to see ugly tracking URLs, especially if they aren’t have absolutely nothing to do with the display ads.

We’ve all been there when we see a display link, “www.blah.com/12343/5455/4/ahe/ddhi/adi.html” and think, “This has what to do with a trip to Tahiti?” Yup, that link doesn’t actually have anything to do with Tahiti, it’s just an ugly tracking link. Google now wants you to realize that’s an ad you’re clicking on, not an actual site.

Consequently, if your display URL is “www.google.com/adwords,” your destination URL is “www.trackingurl.com/google123″ and the landing page is “www.trackingurl.com” it is unacceptable.

Yeah, that’s right, the world’s getting a little more difficult for people doing display advertising. It turns out that good content is still the way to go. This way the links that display on the SERPs are the links to your site, so you’ll get the credit. The credit won’t go to some crap page that you  have set up simply for this ad, but it’ll go to your site.

Taking a longer-term view on this, you’ll get more money from people going to your site than people who click on your ads. Doing display advertising is good, but it’s only a small supplement to a good website. Don’t get lazy, make your website good and you won’t have to worry about the changes the Google makes concerning ads.