Global digital marketing agency iCrossing has announced their findings of their Vertical Visibility Index: Automotive. They’re saying that Chrysler, General Motors (NYSE:GM) and Nissan are tops when it comes to online search visibility.

The Vertical Visibility Index: Automotive is the first in their series of studies that analyzes the paid and organic/natural search media visibility. They are looking to identify the leaders within each specific industry vertical that they study.

In the Vertical Visibility Index: Automotive study, iCrossing found that “Chrysler, GM and Nissan North America are doing the best job of taking a synergistic search engine marketing approach, with the highest scores for combined visibility. Ford leads for natural search visibility and Hyundai has the greatest paid search visibility for the keyword set analyzed.”

iCrossing released the key findings of their study:

– At the OEM level analysis, Ford Motor Company has the largest natural visibility share of market with 22%. They are followed by General Motors Corporation (17%), Chrysler LLC (15%), American Honda Motor Company (11%), and Mercedes-Benz USA (8%). Together, these top five companies make up more than 70% of the total natural search visibility share of market.

– At the brand level, Ford has the highest visibility for a brand with 18% of the natural search visibility market share, followed by Chrysler (12%), Honda (10%), Pontiac (8%), and GMC (6%).

– Of the top 25 keywords by search volume, eight keywords had no visibility for any brand: used car, buy a car, race cars, muscle car, car search, auto loan, car loan, and used car prices.

– Ford Motor Company and Toyota Motor Sales USA are the only OEMs with visibility on the top volume keyword, “car”.

– Of the Top 50 Most Visible URLs based on 1st page natural rankings, automobiles.honda.com has the highest position (22nd) for this keyword set within the brand URLs, followed by pontiac.com (40th), fordvehicles.com (47th), and toyota.com (49th).

– For the study keyword set, Hyundai Motor Company has the greatest paid search market share of Google paid search with 30%, followed by General Motors Corporation (22%), and Chrysler LLC (17%). Together, these 3 OEMs have almost 70% of the overall paid search market share on Google for the automotive keyword set.

– Combining the information from natural and paid search analyses, Chrysler LLC, General Motors Corporation, and Nissan North America are doing the best job of approaching search engine marketing with a synergistic approach.

In the report, iCrossing talks specifically about how they came about the rankings:

“For the Vertical Visibility Index: Automotive report, iCrossing analyzed natural search engine position data for the following U.S. search engines: Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask and AOL. Weighting scores using search engine share of market, keyword volume and keyword positions across each engine, iCrossing used its new proprietary Industry Index algorithm to compute natural search visibility share of market for a set of automotive keywords. Since the score generated for each company represents its share of market across a fixed set of competitors, keywords, and search engines, it is then comparable over time to explore trends.”

What I found interesting is that they looked at Google, MSN, Yahoo!, and Ask, but they also included AOL in the mix. Isn’t adding AOL just going to take the Google findings and multiply it by an additional amount? I mean, the majority of the organic search engine rankings on AOL are all from Google, right? The same with the paid search? So, why would you include AOL?

“For the automotive OEM industry, we generated a set of 102 keywords…”

In this automotive OEM industry, there are a lot more than 102 keywords. I could easily find more. A lot more. Why would this possibly include 102 keywords? Why not 103 or even 100 keywords? Or the top 100 keywords? Anyhow, it’s quite an interesting list, very comprehensive, so I will include it here:

alternative fuel
car online
new car
auto
car payment calculator
new car dealer
auto dealer
car price
new car price
auto incentives
car quote
new car quote
auto industry
car resale values
pickup
auto lease dealer
car retailer
pickup truck
auto loan
car review
pre-owned auto
auto loan calculator
car reviews
pre-owned automobile
auto loan refinance
car sale
pre-owned car
auto online
car search
race cars
auto quote
car show
safe auto
auto retailer
car specials
sedan
auto show
car values
semi truck
auto warranty
car warranty
smart car
automobile
cars online
sports car
automobile dealer
certified pre-owned
station wagon
automobile incentives
certified used
suv
automobile quote
cheap car
truck
automobile retailer
concept cars
truck accessory
buy a car
convertible
truck dealer
buy an auto
coupe
truck part
buy an automobile
crossover vehicle
truck part service
buy new car
electric car
truck repair
buy used car
environmentally friendly car
used auto
buying a car
extended auto warranty
used auto part
car
fast car
used car
car accessory
fuel economy
used car dealer
car dealer
fuel-efficient car
used car for sale
car deals
gas mileage
used car prices
car finance
hatchback
used truck
car incentives
hybrid car
used vehicle
car lease
luxury car
vans
car loan
mini van
vehicle
car loan calculator
muscle car
vehicle sales

For more information and to download their study, take a look here at the research area of iCrossing.

iCrossing is a global digital marketing company that combines talent and technology to help world-class brands find and connect with their customers. The company blends best-in-class digital marketing services - including paid and natural search marketing, Web development, social media, research and analytics — to create integrated digital marketing programs that engage consumers and drive ROI. iCrossing’s client base includes such recognized brands as Epson America, Toyota, Travelocity and 40 Fortune 500 companies, including The Coca-Cola Company and Office Depot. Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, the company has 620 employees in 15 offices in the U.S. and Europe.

There’s a lot of products on the market promising a push button simple system to building a profitable ppc affiliate campaign. These products usually consist of a software program that do most of the work and a simple step by step tutorial to walk you through how to use the system.

Now I’m not saying that these program don’t work, in fact, for the point of our discuss lets assume that these programs do work.

Let’s take a deeper look at this: do you think any simple push button system for making online will last? If there’s a 1000 affiliate using the same system do you think it will effect your profit margins?

Moreover, how easy do you think it will be for someone to copy everything you’ve done if it’s all based on simple system anyone can go out and purchase? Do you have any real competitive advantage.

These types of easy money affiliate products are designed for newbie opportunity seekers who are looking to make a quick buck. I don’t know a single super affiliate who uses these programs.

What’s your goal here? To build a long term sustainable business or make a fast buck?

A long term sustainable affiliate business is based on a unique strategy that YOU develop, something that cannot be easily ripped off. Yeah, some dummy may be able to rip off your landing page and even some of your keywords. But any ppc super affiliate who’s worth their salt knows there’s WAY more to building a successful affiliate campaign then landing pages and keywords.

The entire focus on my affiliate business is to, develop strategies, and focus on markets, that will yield long term profits. This is why I’m VERY selective as to what offers I promote, and I’m continually developing was to improve my processes for building and optimizing affiliate campaigns.

I don’t care if you’re just starting out, focus on building a long term business and ignore the sirens of fast affiliate profits with no work or thought necessary.

eDrugsearch.com released its Healthcare 100.com- “The Worlds Top Blogs On Health and Medicine” for the year 2008 and it includes 7 Health and Wellness channel blogs.

Congrats to Liz, Liberty, Kristina, Kristen, Ruth, Elaine, and Kendra. Very nice job everyone!

# 6 - Healthbolt
# 19 - Autism Vox
# 52 - Lively Women
# 57 - Eating Fabulous
# 80 - Genetics and Health
# 83 - A Hearty Life
# 91 - Diabetes Notes

There is a new blog on the Music Channel!  Canadian Music News brings you the latest videos and news on artists from Canada!  I am proud, as the Music Channel’s editor, to be writing this blog.  Most recently, I talked about Avril Lavigne’s new clothing line and Rufus Wainwright’s controversial song "Going to a Town."  Drop by and leave me a comment!

Here are some great stories from around the channel:

• Amy Winehouse was offered £1 million for gig.  I wonder if she will even show up!
• Love Miley Cyrus?  Win a copy of her Breakout Album!
• Read Oz Music Scene’s interview with Front Counter!
• Check out P.S. 1 news from the Big Apple Music Scene.
• She Plays Music has listed a killer Femme Fatal Summertime Mix!
• Patty Loveless is finally releasing a long-anticipated new album!
• Is Kanye West working on a new television show!?
• Austin Sound Check is giving you a chance to win tickets to see Devin the Dude!

I don’t know if you had a chance to listen to Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address. It’s an amazing talk, full of pearls of wisdom.

Check it out…

I really connected with his address, in many ways.

He is so right when he said that you can only connect the dots looking back and not looking forward. Looking at my own life, if you had told me back in 2000 that I would strike it big in affiliate marketing, I would have given you a funny look.

Back in 2000 I didn’t even know what affiliate marketing was, and I had no plans of being an entrepreneur, financially independent, or anything like that. My plans were to become an academic, a physics professor.

A few years later I discovered that being an academic was NOT my true passion. Nevertheless, I finished my PhD and about 1 year after that point I went full time as an affiliate marketer.

Not only am I truly passionate about what I do now, but I can connect the dots back to everything I learned back in my physics days. As a physics major and later as physics graduate student I developed and fine tuned my problem solving and analytical skills to a very high level.

These skill sets have proved incredibly valuable as PPC affiliate.

As a graduate student I did a lot of work with computer simulations and I learned the importance of obtaining statistically relevant results before jumping to any conclusions. This is yet, another very important skills for anyone who does PPC.

As a physics grad student I never knew the skills I was developing would make me rich one day. It’s funny how things work out!

It’s so important to pursue your true passion in life and leverage your strengths, if you want to be truly successful. Chances are if you find something you’re passionate about it’s because it’s something where you’re leveraging your strengths.

There’s been a lot of talk, and some controversy, about the Performance Marketing Alliance.

Well, I had a chance to interview Rebecca Madigan, founding partner of the Performance Marketing Alliance, to set the records straight…

Click Here to Listen to the Interview

Rebecca and I talk about a whole range of issues in this interview:

1. Do we need a unified voice representing all affiliates?
2. Can we, as an industry, clean up our reputation? How do we deal with the blackhat crowd?
3. With the advent of the New York “affiliate tax” do we need lobbies to push on interests?
4. Do we need industry self-regulation to keep both merchants and affiliates clean and in line with an agreed upon industry standard?

So what do you think? Do you think we, as an industry, need an association to represent our best interests?

If your weekend hasn’t already begun, you’re probably counting down the minutes. Let me distract you then with some fun Entertainment news!

Comic-Con madness! 24 Exile, FTW! Shiny new Lost spoilers too (live blogged, at that!). Fringe will knock your socks off. Prison Break is coming soon! Heroes fans will get a major sneak peek. And Supernatural will be there too.

Reality tv kicks butt! Will voted off, WTF? Go on, get "wiggy" or join the Blonde job train. Learn about the G-Spot, if you don’t already know. Idol 8 is coming soon! Allison DuBois may get her own show? There’s tension on dem Hills! Hollywood goes to the dogs. Reality Bites Back - or does it? Shark Week kicks off with Mythbusters. Wesley heads home on Project Runway. A Top Model debuts. And you could hop on the Love Bus.

Is it time for Fall tv already? Well, no, but here are some spoilers for ya! New underwear on Chuck. Casting gets wicked with Reaper. Lindsay Lohan gets Ugly. There’s some Ghost Whisperer scoop. CSI: Miami gets a purdy new coroner. Edie will be back on Wisteria Lane. There’s a new Suite Life show. "Explore the possibilities" of Fringe. Is Gossip Girl every parent’s nightmare? Callie & Hahn are steaming up with spoilers. Showgirl comes to the L Word. What does Boreanaz think of filming in London? And what did House do!? Things get freaky on Atlantis.

And in the oddball news category… Jay Leno says adios, the Pants return on August 6, and Harry Potter is coming soon too - trailer! Screech is writing a book. Viki didn’t die on One Life to Live. Get the dirt on the Family Guy movie. And Weeds is back!! 

And if you’re still bored after all that, go see a movie! Here’s what’s playing this weekend.

Image: chamomile @ morguefile ; Tags: entertainment, spekked, entertainment news, tv news

Here’s a technique I’ve been using a for awhile that’s extremely powerful, and yet VERY simple.

You’ve probably heard of mind mapping. If you’re into mind maps you’ve probably used them for outlining a book you’ve read or a seminar you’ve listened too, etc, etc.

I want to tell you about a unusual way of using this really powerful technique : minding map your affiliate business.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Get a blank sheet of paper and draw a circle in the middle that represents your business.
2. Now draw a line out from this center circle and make a circle for each and every project or affiliate campaign you’re currently working on. Put the name of the project in the circle.
3. Now for each project circle draw lines out for each sub-project or to-do item within the bigger project
4. Depending on the complexity of a given project, keep branching out as necessary.

Now sit back and take a look at what you’ve created: you’ve mapped out your ENTIRE business on a sheet of paper.

Pretty cool, huh?

This is a great way to step back and get a birds eye view of what you’re doing and where you’re headed. I get great insights on what steps I need to take next to hit my long term and short term goals just by creating and studying my business mind map.

This technique will give you tremendous clarity and insights into your affiliate business. I don’t care if have a small business or are just starting out, get into the habit of mind mapping your business and taking time to THINK about your business as a whole.

Search Engine Roundtable recently pointed out that you can now search all of the US Government web sites courtesy of Google. Using Google’s new Uncle Sam search, you can now search the US Government websites. I can see how this would be very useful, especially if you wanted some unbiased government data. But wait!

Last year I talked about how you can search the college sites. Now you can search the US Government websites courtesy of Google.

Being the curious one, I thought that I would take a look to see how polluted the US Government websites really are. So, I searched this new Google Uncle Sam custom search engine for online casino:

All I can say is, “wow”. Even the online casino spammers have managed to infiltrate the US government websites. I am not surprised, though. They have even managed to get home page links on niem.gov (which now appear to have been cleaned up). Take a look at his screen capture:

Let’s see, you can even find plenty of blog spam on the US Government websites courtesy of Google’s new Uncle Sam search, as well:

And oh yeah, what about the classic “log file referrer spam” what was a big hit amongst the spammers back in 2003. Apparently log file referrer spam or web analytics referrer spam still works like a charm:

This obviously is not Google’s fault. But since Google does such a great job of indexing websites we can really see how polluted our government websites really are. Just imagine how secure these websites are? If an online casino viagra Texas holdem spammer can get their links all over home pages of US Government websites, what’s next? Access to sensitive data about you and me? Wait. That’s already happened. What’s next?

What can you find through Google’s new US Government search?

The E3 Media and Business Summit, which was formerly known as the greatest show on Earth Electronic Entertainment Expo, has concluded recently. Interestingly, the mania that came with such events is far from over. News, video, and all sorts of tidbits flood the Video Games Channel post-E3 so count on us for the latest.

Among the hottest news coming our way include first official E3 trailer of The Sims 3 (via Sims Gamer), the impending arrival of Romance of the Three Kingdoms Online in China (via MMOtaku), and a possibly new Chrono Trigger game (via Siliconera and Handheld Age). Of course, don’t let me dissuade you from checking out the red-hot updates from the rest of the channel.

• Having trouble getting a FragFX? This deal might help (FPS Rantings)
• Discount for Joining Big Fish Games’ Game Club (Gamerlite)
• Nintendo’s Cammy Dunaway talks E3 (Games Industry Wire)
• A New Chrono Trigger? Is It Time to Jump Up and Down? (Handheld Age)
• Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Dead Space Theme Song (Ironic Gamer)
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms Online in China soon (MMOtaku)
• Razer Aurantia, The Razer Keyboard In China (Play Gadgets)
• Sonic Back, Way Back, As In Medieval (Play Girlz)
• Own A Really Bad T-Shirt (Playstation Monger)
• Double Dribble? Arch Rivals seems better (Re:Retro)
• Review: Beggar Prince (Sega Nerds)
• Tomy is getting deeper into games, looking beyond Naruto (Siliconera)
• The Sims 3 - Official E3 First Look Trailer (Sims Gamer)
• Sam and Max - Wii Trailer! (The Adventuress)
• Animal Crossing Revisited, Animal Crossing: City Folk On Wii (Wii News Daily)
• Mount and Pet Collectors Rejoice! (WoW Obsessed)

Image of The Sims 3 is courtesy of EA.