Search Engine Marketing Globe

More Revenue for Google; Thinks Irrelevancy makes more sense !

2008-03-06T14:40:00.000+05:30

In late February, Google launched an AdWords Beta titled Automatic Matching Beta that is designed at driving additional impressions and clicks for advertisers…and revenue for Google. This beta is an expansion on previous changes Google made when it changed “Broad” matching to “Expanded Broad” matching.
With Expanded Broad matching, if a searcher performs two searches, Google will try to present a result based on the initial query. For example, a search for “MP3” yields results all about that subject. Next, if one searches for “accessories,” and Google presents me with multiple results, including one for “MP3 accessories.” The idea being that the research is for MP3s, so a search for accessories must be related to that subject.

Automatic Matching focuses on working with an advertisers daily spend. Google now is examining campaigns that are trending to spend below its Daily Cap and then altering them so they will deliver more ads. For example, under this system, if a company is bidding on sneaker keywords and isn’t pacing to spend its Daily Cap, Google will start to show their ads on similar keywords – such as slippers or shoes. The thought process is that since you are searching for sneakers, you might be interested in slippers or shoes. In some ways this is counterintuitive to what search is; if I asked about sneakers, why would I want slippers? There will be transparency of what’s going on, so keyword ads that are shown based on Automatic Matching will be indicated in a Search Query Performance Report. The beta only affects paid search and search syndication traffic; vertical and content targeting is not included. Keyword quality scores and minimum bids are not affected at this time.
If you’re an advertiser that is looking to drive traffic or impressions, this may be something to look forward to. The tradeoff is the limitation in being able to customize copy for these expanded keywords beforehand. If the focus of your search marketing is to drive conversions based on a CPA or ROI goal, you’ll need to weigh the benefits and consequences of this feature.

Regardless of if Automatic Matching becomes a part of AdWords or remains limited in beta, the idea brings to light the following three things to always consider in your existing campaigns.

Test Match Types – While Broad matching in Google may drive more impressions, the best way to confirm that it’s the right solution for certain high volume/high cost keywords is to test it against Exact or Phrase match and look at the results.

Negative Matching – Leveraging the ability to use negative matching in Google is a great way to ensure targeted users are seeing your ads. It has the ability to raise the Clickthrough Rate (CTR) for individual keywords, which may lead to driving subsequent clicks at a lower cost.

Using Search Query Reports – This report is full of insights. It can help drive decisions on what keywords you should consider adding as negatives, or add to the account so you can control the message on a more granular level. As the search marketplace gets more complex, this is a very useful tool.

Source: Search Marketing Trends

9 Common Mistakes in Landing Page and PPC Campaign Design

2007-12-06T17:12:00.000+05:30

1. Mismatched URL and Site Topic to User Inquiry

Many individuals try to create a one-stop shop landing page for a group of leads so they can build links and try to rank one spot naturally. That is fine as long as the topics are narrow enough in focus to where a visitor from either site feels at home. But when you have visitors coming in from related but not identical fields, it is important to consider that you may be losing more PPC conversions than you’re gaining in natural search by having a mismatched URL and landing page focus as compared to the terms you’re targeting.

2. Below the Fold Call To Action

The call to action is the whole point of a landing page, so why hide it well below the fold where you’re automatically going to lose 30% of visitors.

3. Collecting Unnecessary Data

Every piece of data you collect in your landing page means fewer submissions. While there is certain information you absolutely must have, collecting unnecessary or redundant data is just throwing money away. When it comes to high-dollar time-sensitive lead that you are going to pursue over the phone, there is absolutely no need to collect the specific address. Sending out a piece of snail mail is useless, and so if you’re just trying to figure out which of your subscribers to send the lead to, zip code is plenty. (For that matter you can get rid of the ‘State’ entry as well).

4. No Testimonial

Testimonials dramatically increase landing page conversions because they indicate to the user that the form is legitimate and completes the promise it makes. It’s obvious that a testimonial can be faked, but a casual internet user doesn’t think quite so cynically and will regard testimonials as a quality assurance indicator.

5. Too Many Calls to Action

There should be one or a maximum of two calls to action on your page. While you might be inclined to think that offering users the opportunity to sign up for your newspaper, give you a call, send you a fax, sign up for your RSS feed are all good things, they create confusion and a paradox of choice for the visitor.

6. PPC Not Directed to Landing Page

This is about the dumbest mistake possible, yet seen most of the times in different campaigns. You’re bleeding money through a PPC campaign, you’ve created a landing page, but your campaign doesn’t drop the user directly on the page. Instead people often have their highly converting page one or even two clicks away. If you're investing money to convert via a landing page, don't make the visitor work to find it.

7. Call to Action Not Distinguished or Obvious

Think of your entire landing page and PPC campaign as an elaborate plan to get people to complete one single action. Now that you’re in the right mentality, how dumb is it to leave the call to action button a muted color or otherwise not distinguished. Instead, use an arrow or incorporate a different design element that immediately draws the reader’s eye to the call to action.

8. Using Flash, Video, or Other 'plug-in required' design elements

People clicking on a PPC campaign link typically aren’t the most sophisticated internet users. So running a landing page which requires a plug-in is a surefire way to dramatically cut your conversions.
Rule of Thumb: If your grandma connecting through a dial-up on her Pentium I 586 can't quickly see and complete your call to action, it’s too complex.

9. Being too cheap with your PPC campaign to target top terms

Nobody is saying that you need to spend $12.00 a click like some of those mesothelioma attorneys are doing, or even $0.25 cents a click to capture long tail industry terms like texas trucking accident. But often people want to limp into a PPC campaign with only a few hundred dollars and end up bidding ridiculously cheap keywords that do them no good. Spending a few extra cents per visitor is often the best way to ensure a decent return from your campaign.
No matter whether your goal is to buy a mansion or just to drive some additional leads to your business, a decent landing page and PPC campaign is an essential component of that success.

Google Updates Web Analytics, Relaunches Urchin

2007-12-06T17:07:00.000+05:30

Google announced three new features of its web analytics service: Site Search Reporting, Event Tracking and an updated version of the almost forgotten Urchin Software.

• Site Search reporting: It aggregates data on the effects of searches on site usage, e-commerce activity and conversion on rates. By tracking internal search patterns, it enables users to identify keywords, categories, products and trends to help users measure their sites effectivity in bringing marketing revenues. Site search reporting works well with Google Custom Search, GSA, Google Mini and other non-Google site search products.

• Event Tracking: Finally, Google Analytics is making the measurement of visitor engagement in the interactive features of users’ sites. These interactive elements which are part of the non-static HTML includes Ajax, Javascript, Flash movies, gadgets and widgets, downloads and other multimedia web 2.0 site specific features.

• All New Urchin Software: This software is a refurbished version of the analytics software bought by Google not so long ago. The Urchin Software is a proprietary desktop version of the web based Analytics. It is currently in beta stage and can be downloaded for a trial period of 90 days. It will be made available for a fee once it gets out the beta stage.

As a bonus feature, Google Analytics is now available in several new languages including Czech, Hungarian, Portuguese, Thai, Indonesian and Filipino.

Local.com Offers Paid Search Placement To Small Businesses

2007-04-30T18:27:00.000+05:30

Search engines like Local.com are aiming for a bigger stake in the interactive advertising market, by offering both large and small businesses options that the giants are not offering.

Starting tomorrow, Local.com kicks off its new ‘Local Verified’ service, giving businesses the option of paying an annual fee to secure placement at the top of its localized search results.

Local.com is focused on offering businesses of all sizes multiple local search options, from standard CPMs and banners, to completely free listings.

According to comScore, almost half of consumers who used a local search Web site visited a local merchant as a result of their search behavior, highlighting the efficacy of local search as a source to drive traffic and sales.

Paying $249 for a premium listing with Local.com provides smaller businesses with a cost-effective alternative to the primary search engine's local ad models, allowing them to play with the big boys in the online ad landscape.

The free listings also serve merchants with little or no interactive marketing experience, by allowing them to post or update their business' name, description and contact info, even if they don't have a web site.

The Kelsey Group predicts local search spending to grow to $2.6 billion by 2011.

Part of the shift stems from the online behavior of the small business owners themselves, as they use search engines to find suppliers and contractors and are realizing that the Web can help customers find them too.

Source: MediaPost

Google Adds Preferred Cost Bidding To AdWords

2007-04-24T12:45:00.000+05:30

In a response to the Advertiser’s demand for greater control over how they manage their bids and costs, Google has released a 'Preferred Cost Bidding' feature for its AdWords program. This new, global option allows advertisers to specify the average price they would like to pay per click (preferred CPC) or per thousand impressions (preferred CPM), as opposed to a maximum bid.

According to the AdWords Help Center, the preferred cost bidding system works best for advertisers who are aware of how much each click or impression is worth to their business and want their AdWords advertising costs to be more consistent among other factors. The feature also serves as a time-saver, freeing advertisers from having to constantly adjust their maximum bids.

It may be best for site owners that can contend with a possible shift in conversion rates, however, as the preferred cost bidding system removes some control over ad positioning.

So if an advertiser targets a $5 preferred CPC, the AdWords system may place an ad in a range of positions as it works to get that preferred cost, according to Google.

The option will be available to all advertisers by the end of the week, but in the blogosphere, discussions about the merits and flaws of this new feature, as well as how much control it really affords advertisers have begun.

While advertisers with SEM experience may prefer to micromanage their ads, 'Preferred Cost Bidding' seems to be a viable option for those who have don't have the time or budget to actively manage an AdWords campaign.

Source: MediaPost

Google Tips Its Hand On Voice Search

2007-04-17T15:12:00.000+05:30

Some people read tea leaves to predict the future. Stephen Arnold reads Google patents, and right now he's focusing his attention on United States Patent 7,027,987 voice interface for a search engine.

Arnold, a Google expert who has written a book on the search leader, believes the patent is a roadmap to Google's future in voice search applications. He said the patent reveals that the company has plans to use voice search across the board for a wide variety of devices big and small and for an equally wide swath of applications ranging from voice-to-text products to a variety of telecommunications uses.

Google is optimizing voice search to run on Google's data centers. There's no limit to how they can scale it. They can embed the function on mobile phones, on browsers, on chips, and even on big mainframes. It's entirely device independent.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has his name on the patent, which Arnold said is important because the Google executive would likely want to be associated with research that has an important future.

While the patent is replete with arcane vocabulary and schematics concerning voice-processing technology, it also has sections that clearly discuss the future. The client devices may include devices such as mainframes, minicomputers, personal computers, laptops, personal digital assistants, telephones, or the like, capable of connecting to the network. The client devices may transmit data over the network or receive data from the network via a wired, wireless, or optical connection.

The Googleplex with hundreds of thousands of processors scattered throughout Google's data centers plays a central role in the forthcoming voice search functions. Because of the power of Google's data centers, other search competitors will find it difficult to duplicate Google's voice search applications.

Processing voice is computationally intensive. The new fast processors and fast RAM are the reason the patent opens the door to do voice searches. Google now has the machine its data centers to run voice. It will likely be a network delivered service that can be used by any device with a microphone.

It doesn't take much imagination to see that Google voice search applications could operate seamlessly with many Google applications like GoogleTalk, Google Calendar, or Google Docs. Google users should be able to use the voice functions to quickly turn voice into text on Gmail and even to translate simultaneously among different foreign languages. The patent opens the door for easy spoken translation in real time.

Update by Sunny: Last week Google announced a free voice beta called Google Voice Local Search, which is a telephone information service. This could well be the way for the company's future in voice search.

Source: InformationWeek

Google to Buy DoubleClick for $3.1 Bn

2007-04-17T15:08:00.000+05:30

Google reached an agreement with private equity firm Hellman & Friedman to buy DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash, the largest acquisition yet made by the Internet giant.

The addition of DoubleClick, which provides the technology to place ads on Web sites, could help Google control even more of the Internet advertising market, particularly in attracting brand ad dollars. DoubleClick has already announced plans to create an online advertising exchange that would let marketers bid for ad space on Web sites.

The pending acquisition is another blow to Microsoft, which was reportedly in talks to buy DoubleClick for $2 billion. It is also an enormous bet by Google that DoubleClick's ad-serving technology will help the company expand beyond its dominance of search and text-based Web ads into display ads favored by brand marketers.

While Google generated $10.5 billion in 2006 ad revenue, nearly all of its sales come from text listings on search results pages and elsewhere. Google's efforts to translate its search dominance into a leading position in display and video markets have so far been mostly unsuccessful.

The data going through Google could, however, give some publishers pause.

Google is going to have to be very thoughtful about how they take advantage of this installed base they have. Publishers want to be very sure of what's going where and how it's protected.

Source: Adweek

Google Bows Web Site Optimization Tool

2007-04-04T18:55:00.000+05:30

Adding to its already enormous toolbox, Google today launches Google Website Optimizer, a product designed to help Web site owners test drive different landing pages in order to determine which designs drive the most conversions.

Depending on the type of business, those conversions might be sales, downloads of information, viewing video, and other kinds of transactions.

Website Optimizer, which was released as a closed beta in fall 2006, is integrated with Google AdWords and free to AdWords advertisers. Google considers Website Optimizer the third leg of the proverbial stool with AdWords dedicated to driving Web traffic and Google Analytics focused on measuring Web activity.

The new Website Optimizer is dedicated to converting visitors into customers and improving Web pages. The tool allows advertisers to receive up to 10,000 versions of a Web page. This tool lets you have one page, add a few Java scripts and then when visitors hit the page, there are different combinations served.

Website Optimizer allows advertisers to have one page, perhaps a home page, add some Java scripts to the page, and then be able to show visitors different versions of that page. Advertisers can then track and see which version is most effective for their purposes in terms of driving return on investment.

Source: MediaPost

Google, EchoStar Announce Automated TV Ad System

2007-04-03T16:17:00.000+05:30

Amid mounting speculation about Google’s plans for TV advertising, the Mountain View, CA-based giant announced a groundbreaking partnership with EchoStar Communications to introduce the first automated system for buying, selling, delivering and measuring television ads on EchoStar DISH Network's 125 national satellite programming networks.

Under the agreement, Google will have access to a portion of the DISH Network's advertising inventory that spans all channels and dayparts. The national test is on an invitation-only basis to advertisers.

"Our partnership with EchoStar is important for us as we begin to offer a TV advertising platform broadly," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in the official press statement. "We think we can add value to this important medium by delivering more relevant ads to viewers, providing better accountability for advertisers and better monetize inventory for TV operators and programmers."

Adds Michael Steib, Director of Google TV ad sales; "We will be receiving aggregated data. While being very sensitive to user privacy, we are able to learn how many households watched each ad. Specifically, we're making available second-by-second commercial measurement. The end result should be more relevance for consumers and better results for advertisers.

It develops into this digital ecosystem where we are helping the advertisers put the ads in front of the right audience and the viewer will see more and more relevant ads," added Steib.

Google has been testing the system with Astound Cable, a small cable provider, in the Concord, CA DMA.

"Ours is the only end-to-end system with auction-based pricing, full digital workflow and detailed commercial measurement to inform the advertiser and agency on the effectiveness of their campaign," said Steib.

The system is intended to add efficiency to the entire buying, selling and placing process, Steib said. It will use a Web-based system like AdWords. Advertisers will bid for inventory with an auction-based system and indicate their CPM bids. Google will run the auction--and report back in 24 hours whether the advertiser won the auction and if the ad ran, where it ran and the number of household boxes delivered.

Advertisers can then adjust their pricing based on how well creative performed in which conditions.

Participants in the beta uniformly pointed to the real-time measurement elements of the test as revolutionary because within 24 hours, advertisers will know not only what ads have been viewed, but where in the ads viewers have tuned out. Advertisers will also get to see how their ads perform in different dayparts.

To read the complete story, click here.

Source: MediaPost

ClipBlast Aims To Simplify Video Search Process

2007-03-28T18:09:00.000+05:30

Web video search platform Clipblast is adding a number of features to its proprietary engine in an attempt to simplify what many consumers feel is an inefficient process. ClipBlast's Video Navigator, which crawls the entire Web for video content, now lets viewers browse video in several different ways. They can select categories ranging from animals to wellness and major content providers from ABC to YouTube. For example, die-hard India fans can choose Cricket as a category and ESPN as a provider to return real-time clips of the day's games, as well as all previously released videos.

ClipBlast's Navigator is specifically designed for video viewing, as it augments the search toolbar to zoom in on the most pertinent video. The toolbar approach is effective for text search, where users expect to zoom in with laser-like focus on a particular piece of information. On the Video Web, viewers still search for information, but they also spend time browsing, watching and being entertained.

Users can also build their personal Video Clip Library by saving their searches, preferred categories, favorite providers and individual video clips. They can sign up to receive email as new, similar clips become available. Built-in contextual search helps ClipBlast deliver future results and recommendations based on past behavior. To avoid the legal issues plaguing so many video aggregators today, ClipBlast's Video Navigator delivers search results that link viewers directly to content provider sites. Not only does this protect copyrighted material, it also allows content providers to grow Web traffic, control the viewing experience and monetize their own content.

Source: MediaPost

Google Tests Cost-Per-Action Ads

2007-03-21T17:21:00.000+05:30

Search giant Google has launched another limited beta of Pay-Per-Action (PPA) advertising, a model that allows advertisers to pay for a specific consumer activity, like signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.

The cost-per-action ads will appear only on the AdSense publisher network. Partner publishers are allowed to choose whether they want CPA ads to appear on their sites. Over the next few weeks, Google will begin inviting publishers and advertisers to participate.

Google first began testing Pay-Per-Action ads in June 2006. During that test, the CPA ads did not compete with regular AdSense ads. They were displayed on a different network, dubbed the Content Referral Network.

CPA ads offer publishers a lower volume-higher-cost option on their AdSense ads. While there will likely be fewer actions, the revenue realized per event will probably be greater and much greater in some cases. Publishers have a great deal of choice in the program and will know exactly how much they'll make on any given lead or action originating from their sites.

It will be interesting to see how both advertisers and publishers respond, and whether both sides embrace the program almost uniformly. Google is offering PPA in new ad inventory that complements traditional AdSense, so publishers in the near term won't lose any click revenue as they test the performance of the new program.

Update by Sunny: Well, with the CPA model Google will definitely offer a better ROI to marketers as compared to the traditional CPC model. The big question however remains that, will this model overthrow the traditional model of Paid Advertising and create a new dimension for marketers to explore better search opportunities?

Source: MediaPost

Big Four Portals Grab Bulk Of Ad Dollars

2007-03-20T16:03:00.000+05:30

Despite an increasingly fragmented online universe, big-name portals are alive and thriving.The Big Four i.e. Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN will sop up a whopping two-thirds, 66% of the $19.5 billion spent on online advertising.

Traditional marketers tend to find safety in established, mass-market brands. And since advertisers put only 6.6% of their ad budgets online in 2006, the need for established Internet brands will remain strong for several years.

This year, Google accounts for a full 32.1% of all online ad spending, while Yahoo will come in a distant second with 18.7%. AOL which only last year switched from a subscription model to an ad-supported one will take 9.1% of all online ad revenue, while MSN is expected to trail with 6.8%.

The portals' control over online ad dollars has only increased year over year. In 2005, the four captured more than half i.e. 53.7% of that year's Internet ad spending: $12.5 billion. Why are portals still so popular with advertisers? The short answer is tons of traffic, since each of the four averages 100 million or more unique visitors monthly. That translates into 57.4% of ad revenue in 2006 alone. The massive scale and something-for-everyone kind of experience offered by portals will continue to attract a certain type of advertiser and consumer.

Source: MediaPost

Panama provides a boost to CTR's

2007-03-07T22:23:00.000+05:30

Big brand advertisers are getting the most so far from Yahoo's Panama upgrade, which was released in February and includes the "Quality Index" ranking ads according to their quality as well as the advertiser's bid. Fortune 500 advertisers are seeing their click-through rates increase to 4.4% from 2.3% according to data released today by SearchIgnite and RBC Capital Markets.
Bigger brands saw a greater increase in click-through rate post-Panama because on generic, non-brand terms, searchers tend to click on brands they recognize. For large-brand marketers, the scale of the positive impact was surprising. It most helped consumer brand marketers with strong brands, because on non-brand terms, people are more likely to click through on terms they know and trust.
On average across all its clients, SearchIgnite reported a 22% increase in click-through rates, to 2.5% from 2%, after Panama was fully released. On average, CPCs rose slightly, to 59 cents, from 56 cents--but larger brand advertisers instead saw a decrease in CPCs, to 16 cents, from 21 cents.
As a result, Yahoo has seen its share of paid search advertising increase slightly, the report stated. Yahoo's market share dropped every month for the last year, from 46% in the first quarter of 2006 to 19.6% in the fourth quarter of that year. It reached a low of 17% during the transition period starting Jan. 1, when marketers were first allowed to start moving to the new system. After Feb. 5, when all campaigns were migrated to Panama, Yahoo's share of search marketing dollars increased slightly to 18.1%.
Yahoo can sustain a higher media spend, based on the numbers that most of our marketers are seeing. The report was based on roughly 13 billion impressions and 140 million clicks on Yahoo, Google and MSN starting Jan. 1, 2006 and ending Feb. 24, 2007, across roughly 500 marketers.

Update by Sunny: As more marketers are finding Panama ROI effective, will this reverse back the trend in Yahoo's favor? An interesting thing to watch out for will be the sustainability of Google in this long Search Marathon : )

Source:MediaPost

Google developing PowerPoint clone code-named Presently?

2007-02-06T12:12:00.000+05:30

After launching Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google now seems to be developing an online presentation tool, code-named Presently, a play on the original online word processor called Writely that was acquired by Google in 2006 and later renamed.

With the help of Google’s yet to be launched online presentation tool “You will be able to convert a document into a presentation, create slides and view the presentation in full-screen,” according to Google Operating System.

Update by Sunny: Google seems to be entering the Microsoft Arena in a big way. I won’t be surprised if we could soon use Microsoft Outlook and other applications using Google.

Source:AlooTechie

If Search Engines Could Talk: ChaCha - The Friendly Search Engine

2007-01-24T12:37:00.000+05:30

I recently had a conversation with the newly launched techno-human hybrid chat search engine, ChaCha. For those not familiar with ChaCha, this engine uses human researchers in a side chat interface as a live search engine results page is built before your eyes. My purpose was to test a search funnel process over several keywords and phrases to see if the guide would lead me to a satisfying result.

"StephenD" was my live human guide who built the search engine results page by reformulating my query information, and his real screen name was changed for this article. Casual punctuation and capitalization was also changed.

I've since conducted a few other ChaCha searches, mostly when I've hit a dead end on a hard-to-find search. Even though the editors are not always topic experts, they have been able to build a result set that offered some level of satisfaction, though it takes some time to build manually. I also had to feed the live guide a lot of information.

Update by Sunny: So is ChaCha the Google killer? I wouldn't bet on it, but I would bet that they find a niche in the market with a loyal user base, and that we may see more innovation from them to come in the form of user interface, and/or behavioral research. For Google, this might be the next level of Search : )

Google Passes Yahoo in Tally of Visitors

2007-01-18T12:19:00.000+05:30

Google displaced Yahoo as the world’s second-most-visited Web site in November 2006 and closed in on the leader, Microsoft.

Visitors to Google’s sites rose 9.1 percent, to 475.7 million in November from a year earlier, while those to Yahoo sites rose 5.2 percent, to 475.3 million. Both sites trail Microsoft, which had 501.7 million visitors.

It was the first time that Google, based in Mountain View, California, attracted more visitors than Yahoo, reflecting Google’s growing popularity outside the United States. Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, is still the most-visited site within the United States. Microsoft’s visitors increased 3.3 percent from a year earlier.

Visitors to Fox Interactive Media sites, owned by the News Corporation, rose almost fivefold, to 130.4 million, in November from a year ago, reflecting a surge from the purchase of MySpace.com.

Visitors at YouTube, bought by Google for $1.65 billion in November, rose more than 24-fold to 107.9 million.

Source: The NewYork Times

Three SEO Myths Debunked

2007-01-18T00:20:00.000+05:30

1. Natural Search is Dead - There is nothing that could be farther from the truth. Natural search engine optimization is still thriving. It is more difficult today than it was five or six years ago, but the core of search results are still free. Natural Search Engine Optimization being dead is a popular myth because of the standardization of methodology that is now used. Each of the major search engines has released guidelines for Webmasters that detail the dos and don'ts of Web site optimization. Since more of the online world is aware of successful optimization techniques, they do not work as well. In other words, there is more competition from knowledgeable optimizers armed with the same toolsets.

Natural search optimization is not dead, but is certainly harder. Successful Web sites with strong natural traffic know that optimization is a continual process. The best and most relevant Web sites should work their way to the top of the search result pages. These Web sites have fresh, valuable, keyword-rich content, good linking, internal optimization, value propositions for visitors, and good user experiences. Knowing all the pieces of the puzzle does not always mean it can be quickly put together. Natural SEO requires an ongoing commitment that can pay off through qualified and free traffic.

2. Paid inclusion is dead - A few years ago, almost every major search engine had a paid inclusion option. This was a service to guarantee that Web pages were included in a search engine's database for a fee. Through consolidation of some of the engines and the emergence of a few new ones, paid inclusion now only means Yahoo Search Submit and Yahoo Search Submit Pro. While it is not a session topic at search engine conferences anymore, paid inclusion can still be a powerful tool for online marketers that want to tag urls, optimize content, remove code bloat and have more reporting abilities from Yahoo.

3. Meta tags are a waste of time - The first search engines had to find ways to organize and rank the Web sites they found. They weighed heavily on meta tags and keyword frequency. Meta tags are parts of HTML coding that are not displayed by Web browsers (ie. Internet Explorer, FireFox, Mozilla). If used properly, they are a great way to tell a search engine more about a Web page. However, they have been abused in the past by spammers. Today's search engine algorithms are much more advanced. Meta tags' values have been lessened but not forgotten.

The only two meta tags that are relevant for SEO are "description" and "keyword." The first is still used by a few search engines as the text that describes the Web page in the search results. The description tag provides the opportunity to sell the Web page to the searcher in a sentence or two. The keywords tag is probably one of the least important optimization points on a Web page. Least important does not mean not important. It is also a great way for content publishers to focus in on and organize the important keywords on a Web page.

Source: MediaPost

MSN Tests Analytics Tool

2007-01-15T17:07:00.000+05:30

Microsoft is currently testing a keyword analytics tool, code-named "Gatineau" to compete with Google's free analytics offering, Google Analytics.

News of the early-stage alpha test surfaced late last week on blogs of two of the project team members--Ian Thomas, who heads the Gatineau project for Microsoft's Digital Advertising Solutions team, and Reeves Little, program manager with Windows Live Europe.

The technology is based on that of the Gatineau, Canada-based DeepMetrix Corporation, which Microsoft acquired last year. In the coming months, Microsoft expects to launch an invitation-only beta to test the tool.

The product is slated for release later this year, but Microsoft intends to gradually add users to avoid the system instability that initially plagued Google Analytics.

Shortly after it launched in October 2005, a surge in demand overwhelmed Google Analytics, leading the company to briefly stop accepting new users.

To read the whole story, click here.

Source: MediaPost

What Can We Learn From 2006's Top Searches?

2007-01-03T19:08:00.000+05:30

Well, we have seen what’s been searched for in the last year. So what can we take away from this mixture?

1. Naughty or nice? The Frienemy keeps us guessing - While knowing what queries increased in volume over last year is interesting, wouldn't it be nice if Google played along for once and gave us hard data by which apples-to-apples comparisons could be made? At any rate, assuming that the searches that topped Yahoo and MSN were also tops on Google, it's worth noting that...

2. Search engines are not yellow pages - Notice that the top searches (again, in terms of absolute queries) are not destination Web sites, they are people or topics. And they're not transactional, they're informational. It appears the long tail of the Web is attached to a very good-looking celebrity head.

3. Video – Videos were the seventh biggest gainer on Google's list. And, no doubt, one of the main forms of content consumers were looking for when searching celebs and athletes. 2007 could be looked upon as a watershed year for video search. From deeper integration of YouTube into the Google machine to continued innovation by specialty players like Blinkx, to heavy pushes from AOL and others, video search will continue to get smarter and more popular. And, while it may not happen in '07, it won't be long before we are searching video content on our TVs the same way we do on our computers.

4. Search advertising must remain relevant and non-interruptive - With the plethora of Hollywood content available on TV and in print , why are so many people turning to search engines to get their fix? Because it's easy to find what you want without being bombarded by ads. We must maintain the sanctity of search real estate, especially as we expand into other channels.

5. We must understand, respect, and leverage International nuances - There's a lot of innovation happening outside the U.S. For marketers with global footprints, it's crucial to customize search programs to match the mindset of consumers in foreign countries. And this means more than just translating copy into different languages. It means truly immersing your brand into the local culture.

6. Welcome to the social - More than just a witty tagline for the Microsoft Zune, this invitation sums up the state of the Web as we head into 2007. Just about every query on Google's list relates to some sort of Web 2.0 application. With new content being published every second by anyone with Internet access, search takes on a heightened role of connecting consumers with the content they desire, as well as that which they did not know existed. And that's not search's only role...

7. Search can be a great PR tool - With Web entries often mentioning negative news, from drug use to divorces, 2006's most searched individuals certainly could benefit from some positive spin. How better to get your side of the story in front of inquiring minds than by intercepting them at the point-of-query, before they have a chance to find those racy photos or read that police report?

8. The more things change, the more they stay the same - Even though the Internet has enabled us to easily create our own content and meet people all over the world who share our unique tastes and preferences, we're still obsessed with the same old, young, celebrities. Applying this adage to our world, the more things change with algorithms, distribution, quality scores, inventory, and specs, the more the basic best practices of search marketing will remain the same.

Update by Sunny: So, as we look ahead to 2007, let us resolve to stay the course and continue spreading the gospel. It won't be long before all content is searchable and all advertising is query-centric. With the insight gleamed from why people are searching, not just what they're searching, we'll be properly equipped to guide the penetration and convergence of search into all forms of media. Best wishes for the coming year. May your search for health, happiness, peace, and prosperity yield strong and relevant results !!

What We Searched for in 2006

2007-01-03T17:31:00.000+05:30

If one would analyzes across major engines for what we searched for in the year 2006, he / she would surely be disheartened with the lack of intellectual depth that was shown in our collective quest for knowledge. So, how did we fare this year?

Let's start with Google. Unfortunately, one has to read between the lines on these various reports. The list isn't actually the real list for any of them.. These lists are heavily filtered, and in Google's case, seemingly altered to a substantial degree. Here is its reported top 10:

1) Bebo
2) Myspace
3) World Cup
4) Metacafe
5) Radioblog
6) Wikipedia
7) Video
8) Rebelde
9) Mininova
10) Wiki

A little investigative work at Google Trends{thanks to Danny Sullivan} soon uncovered the inconsistencies. Google's reported No. 1 term, "bebo," actually has nowhere near the volume of "myspace" and "world cup." In fact, "bebo" is almost flat-lined at the bottom. There could be internal excuses that Google might have for the inconsistencies, including aggregation of misspellings, but just how many ways can you misspell bebo anyway?

The list actually becomes more interesting when you include some of the terms that got filtered out. A quick look shows that Google is often used for navigation. Terms like myspace and wikipedia are not queries for information, but a quick way to get to a site. Google has already deleted many navigational terms from the list, so let's add the big ones, Yahoo, Google, MSN and YouTube and see what the trend chart looks like. Now we see the true search volumes, and that a lot of people are using Google to get from point A to B. What is a little disturbing is that searches for "Google" on Google hold the No. 2 spot, just behind Yahoo.

Yahoo on the Red Carpet

Meanwhile, Yahoo seems to turning into the "Entertainment Tonight" of search engines. The top 10 searches on Yahoo are:

1) Britney Spears
2) WWE
3) Shakira
4) Jessica Simpson
5) Paris Hilton
6) American Idol
7) Beyonce Knowles
8) Chris Brown
9) Pamela Anderson
10)Lindsay Lohan

If these are the best things that searchers can throw at Yahoo, no wonder they're struggling in the search engine showdown. It's the equivalent of the tabloid rack at the grocery checkout counter.

Yahoo also allows a peek at other countries' top-ten lists as well.

The Search Engine formerly known as MSN

The MSN (now Live) list also shows a bias towards the entertainment side. The top10 searches on MSN comprise:

1) Ronaldinho
2) Shakira
3) Paris Hilton
4) Britney Spears
5) Harry Potter
6) Eminem
7) Pamela Anderson
8) Hilary Duff
9) Rebelde
10)Angelina Jolie

In the final analysis, what's striking about these lists is what the search engines seem to be used for. Google has become the main intersection of the Web. Its top searches make clear its role as a traffic clearinghouse, routing millions of users through the results page as they navigate from point A to B. It's infrastructural and essential. The top searches on Yahoo and MSN tell a different story, one of idle curiosity, no pressing plans and killing time.

In a nutshell, this story crystallizes the fundamental problem Yahoo and Microsoft face if they hope to challenge Google as the king of the search hill. They have to become essential.

Source:MediaPost

The Bubble Bath

2006-12-30T13:49:00.000+05:30

For Search Engine Marketer’s and Online Advertisers, 2006 was a bubble bath. The tone was set at the end of 2005, when Google paid $1 billion for a 5% stake in AOL. That put AOL's total value at $20 billion, or $1,000 per subscriber. Later this year, Google paid $1.65 billion in its well-publicized acquisition of YouTube, a company with sixty-five employees, no profit model, and a bevy of illegally copied material. But perhaps the biggest of them all, the granddaddy of all bubbles, is Google's stock price itself, which at press time was hovering at a 57.85 P/E ratio. Indeed, analysts are also finally starting to catch on to Google's hugely overvalued stock.

Advertisers have shifted their spend from offline into search and other online media. As the general public has spent more time consuming media online, advertisers have realized that the accountability of an online campaign greatly surpasses that of a traditional campaign. Overall advertising is growing at 4-5% per year, while digital advertising is growing at 30%.

The next step for advertisers is applying the highly touted accountability of online media to their offline campaigns. This requires the keen analytics and robust technology typically found in digital agencies, and notably absent from traditional agencies. These capabilities include measuring spikes in search behavior and traffic in response to TV, print, and outdoor ads. An agency that specializes in all media, both online and offline, will be able to execute on initiatives like boosting bids on keywords mentioned in TV commercials, and building microsites as landing pages where consumers can easily read more info and purchase the product they saw on TV.

It is always risky to speculate on the future, but there are certain outcomes that almost certainly will occur in some form or other. "Convergence" has been a hot buzzword in the industry, the idea being that users will take control of their TVs in the same way that they've taken control of online content. This, in theory will enable advertisers to target video ads behaviorally, demographically, and by keyword. But this theory presumes that TV will still be the only device used to consume video. In reality, perhaps "Divergence" is a better word, because media will be consumed not just on TV, but on computers, mobile phones, mobile e-mail devices, MP3 players, and in cars.

Keeping track of and optimizing each ad's performance, across a diverse user base with a diverse media-consumption device base, all while deploying targeting options and other optimization techniques, will require an even more advanced technology and even s

Soiharper analytics. A digital advertising firm is far better positioned to deliver these assets to clients than an offline media firm.

What a refreshing note to the end of 2006. Just when we all thought the bubbles were rising over the rim of the tub, here's a move that will allow all parties to soak in real, not imagined, value.

Source: MediaPost

SEO 2.0 And The Pageless Web: The RIA Search Conundrum

2006-12-30T12:55:00.000+05:30

Search Engines and natural search optimizers are starting to deal with new difficulties in the crawling, indexing and measurement of Web site content. In the page-based paradigm, these activities have been somewhat straightforward, but challenging questions are beginning to arise as more Webmasters are beginning to employ rich internet applications (RIA) designed fundamentally to improve Internet navigation and user experience. As the adoption of RIA grows, new strategies will be required of engines, marketers, SEMs and analytics companies in order to reap the mutual benefits of finding, being found, and being counted.

The Pageless Web: Implementation of rich internet applications turns many of the cornerstones of search engine algorithms and SEM strategy on their head. The major issue at hand is that the searchable web is based on the crawling and indexing of pages, each with its own unique URL address. RIA-based designs rely less on the reloading of pages, and also have little or no need at all for unique URLs.

Unless specific search strategies are taken into consideration, the gains in user satisfaction will come at the expense of natural search engine performance and returns. At their core, rich internet applications shield data from search engines, and a story of increasing complexity in data management and measurement is emerging.

The user experience of some RIA-based interfaces is nothing short of stunning when compared to similar page-based experiences. With benefits such as seamless data delivery, reduction in time for query responses and less need to refocus on freshly loaded pages, it is simple to understand why marketers will inevitably adopt RIA in droves.

Responsibility is on the engines: Search engines are starting to feel the crunch of the increased adoption of rich interfaces, not only in their ability to find and crawl relevant new content, but also in their own employment of AJAX into various applications that effectively decreases a site’s page views, one of the primary measurements of Web popularity and performance.

The responsibility is shared by skilled optimizers: A better option for optimizers at this point could be to build a second mirror site with a unique URL structure for engines to crawl. The burden for Webmasters is that two complete Web sites must be managed in order to take advantage of search engine visibility benefits.

Webmasters would design sites with users, accessibility, and search engines in mind. Google does quite a good job on much JavaScript, but complicated AJAX can present issues for any crawler. Rich interfaces are not an immediate threat to Google’s relevancy. Vast majority of sites are still built as static web pages which doesn’t seem to be much of a problem. The positive thing is that people building RIA/AJAX sites tend to have a technical skill set and thus at least consider the impact of search engine crawlability.

Based on the efficiencies and improvement in user experience, one can expect a growing demand for Web-based applications at the enterprise level in the coming months. But marketers and developers building rich Internet applications should also be aware of the potential for lost natural search benefits, or be prepared to create and maintain full mirror sites to appease crawler-based engines and other user agents. All eyes should continue to look to Yahoo and Google, as their continued employment of RIA and reliance on publisher data will force them to expand the boundaries of Web site crawlability and site measurement.

Source:MediaPost

What's cooking at MSN Adlabs?

2006-12-18T19:22:00.000+05:30

In its effort to entrench itself in the search community, MSN has made significant investments not only in technology and personnel, but in the area of research as well. One such example is Microsoft adCenter Labs.

AdLabs was created in early 2006 but has been steadily expanded and improved over the course of the year. Today it boasts some of the most innovative free research tools available to search marketers and is a welcome breath of fresh air.

Some of the tools available in adLabs and their potential applications are:

Keyword Group Detection - By extracting themes from a specific query, this tool provides terms that are relevant or similar to that query.

Keyword Mutation Detection - This tool shows common misspellings and other variations of a particular query. It is very helpful in building a keyword list and ensuring that one has covered all the possible ways in which someone might spell one’s brand name, product name, etc.

Search Funnels - With the notion of the funnel being all the rage these days, this handy tool shows the specific queries immediately before or after the keyword you enter. Options include drilling down within the funnel (e.g. "cars" > "used cars" > "mitsubishi") and adjusting the number of subsequent queries you want to view.

Search Result Clustering - This tool semantically clusters results for a query in a number of different ways ranging from questions and answers to displaying relationships among people.

Forecasting Search Volume Seasonality - While it doesn't quite roll off the tongue like Google Trends, MSN's version is decidedly more robust if potentially less directional, due to its smaller share of overall searches. For one, it shows absolute search volume for each query, whereas Google just shows positioning relative to the axis. MSN also shows actual vs. forecast volume.

Keyword Forecast - Perhaps the most immediately actionable tool in adLabs, the Keyword Forecast allows you to view actual impressions for a query by month for the past 12 months. It also overlays the age and gender distribution of the individuals who submitted that query. And, to top it all off, the results can be viewed in pictures or text for easy export into PowerPoint or Excel.

Detecting Online Commercial Intention - This tool predicts the intent of each query based on the likelihood that it is commercial or noncommercial. It also ranks specific Web sites and further delineates commercial sites by informational or transactional.

Update by Sunny: MSN’s adlabs is certainly adding new feathers to the Search Engine Experience Cap. Lots more is still awaited until it finally rolls out in full swing. So lets keep our fingers crossed and keep searching : )

Source: MediaPost

Google: The Agency Frienemy?

2006-12-18T10:59:00.000+05:30

The global estimate of the entire advertising industry is somewhere north of $500 billion. Current rough run rates would indicate that the online world is two, three, four, five percent of this total number, Google on its current revenue path is on the order of one percent of this total number. So there's a lot of room to grow.

Using this massive figure of $500 billion to frame the market potential for Google would be extremely bold for even the most bullish Wall Street analyst trying to justify a buy on a $480+ stock with a PE ratio of 53. But Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has something else to say. Google doesn't see itself as a friend or an enemy to traditional advertising services but it sees itself and its technology as a solution to inefficiency, and the advertising industry as an industry rampant with inefficiency. So Google will ride in on its white horse and save the advertisers, the content producers who rely on advertising and the people targeted by advertising.

To this end, Google is willing to work with anyone interested in solving the big issues facing advertising; anyone, that is, willing to rethink anything and everything. No business units can be sacred, because one can not address change and apply theory to practical applications while insisting on certain areas holding constant. But the catch is that a purely Google solution to the issues facing advertising could have seriously detrimental effects on agencies' bottom lines. If agencies are forced to follow Google's lead as it develops technology to implement theories that improve the efficiency of advertising, the agency will be relegated to reacting and Google will own the interface. Agencies will be continuously reorganizing and reassessing their roles while attempting to protect traditional business units/revenues. Try to imagine Google holding off on releasing a system that improves the accuracy of advertising measurement because of the system's disruptive impact. Now compare that to recent delay in introducing the new commercial ratings systems, while media and advertisers attempt to reach unilateral agreement on the implications of the new system.

Agencies, and particularly the largest holding companies, posses the knowledge, the skill sets and the relationships to breakdown traditional advertising norms on their own terms. Agencies can develop new theories regarding the requirements of technologies to deliver more efficient advertising. Agencies can then facilitate the development of these technologies. By facilitating the development of next-generation advertising technologies, the agencies can lead changes affecting the future of advertising efficiency and accountability. Leading changes of this magnitude will require some levels of "Coopatition" {Co-operation and Competition} among the agencies.

Leading change will be required for today's agencies to stake their claim to that $500 billion their frienemy is eyeing so boldly. Luckily, traditional media isn't disappearing overnight, but it is up to the agencies to manage the sea change.

The description of Google as the agencies' frienemy is accurate, but in the end whether it is more of a friend or and enemy depends on the agencies. For those agencies successful in their efforts to improve advertising efficiencies and reevaluate excepted methods, Google can be a friend. Google will help achieve, from a technology perspective, the vision those agencies set out to fulfill. For those agencies in a more defensive posture, Google can be a deadly enemy, disintermediating agencies from the advertiser and commoditizing traditional agency services. Agencies can rest assured that there are many areas, such as brand advertising, where Google isn't anywhere near a true solution or establishing industry standards. This is where there's room for agencies to step up, establish the standards together, build their vision of advertising's future and invite their friend Google to the table on their terms.

Source: MediaPost

Yahoo Opens Panama To All Search Marketers

2006-12-14T13:26:00.000+05:30

Yahoo opened registration for its highly anticipated PANAMA Search Engine Marketing platform to all advertisers. With the new platform, Yahoo's paid search offerings are expected to become far more competitive with those of market leader Google.

Among the main features are new geo-targeting capabilities and analytics, as well as instantaneous review of ad copy. In the past, it took Yahoo between 24 and 48 hours to approve ads.

Yahoo began inviting select advertisers onto the Panama platform in October. In July, Yahoo Chairman Terry Semel announced that the overhaul, which was initially scheduled for the third quarter of this year would be delayed until the end of 2006, and that advertisers should prepare to use the system starting in 2007.

Despite the end-of-year rollout, it's possible that many advertisers will wait to switch over to the new platform until the end of the holiday shopping season. Most marketers are not looking to launch today and they won't utilize this until early 2007.

The Panama platform will provide a jumping-off point for Yahoo to integrate its search and display ad businesses, something that Google has already done. The search and display needs to be integrated, so it's easier for a marketer to run an integrated campaign across Yahoo's properties.

The rollout is coming at the end of a challenging year for Yahoo. The company has failed to catch up to Google in search market share, and has floundered in attempts to claim a bigger stake in the burgeoning social media space. Earlier this year, talks to acquire social networking site Facebook for more than $1 billion reportedly stalled.

Update by Sunny: Well, the new features of this Search Engine would boost click-through rates on paid search campaigns. I’m really bullish on Panama and I hope it matches to my expectations !!

The Future of Web Ads is in Britain

2006-12-11T18:42:00.000+05:30

Online advertising is racing ahead in Britain, growing at a roughly 40 percent annual rate, and is expected to account for as much as 14 percent of overall ad spending this year, according to media buying agencies. That is the highest level in the world, and more than double the percentage in the United States.

There are big differences between the advertising markets in Britain and the United States. In Britain, much of the advertising is national, while there are strong local and regional ad markets in America. Still, some believe that online advertising in Britain provides somewhat of a roadmap for where online ads in the United States and elsewhere may be heading.

More than their American counterparts, British marketers seem to have bought into the oft-touted benefits of Internet advertising: that it is easy to track, enormously effective and a relative bargain. In Britain, as Internet ad spending surges, the overall advertising pie is not growing much at all, and traditional media are the ones losing out.

However, British media are nearly all aimed nationwide in contrast to the United States newspaper and television markets, where local and regional markets are big players. These local markets in the United States have, so far, been slow to move ad money online.

As recently as 2002, many British advertisers were reluctant to go online, too. That year, British advertising online was 1.4 percent compared with 2.5 percent in the United States, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau in Britain and the Interactive Advertising Bureau in the United States. Each bureau tracks online ad spending in their respective countries.

To read the whole story, click here.

Source: The NewYork Times

Solutions For Seven SEM Planning and Execution Challenges

2006-12-07T17:37:00.000+05:30

Sorry for being away for some time as a lot of things needed to be pushed and completed on time. So here i am, and this time with a solution for the questions posed in one of the earlier articles, remember 'Seven Challenges of SEM Planning and Execution' ?? Well, here are a few solutions to it.

1) Integrating search as a business or technical requirement - Executives and directors overseeing a project should make search a major objective in advance of the project. Be very specific about what should be accomplished for search early in the game. For technical requirements, set basic goals that ensure that a site is Fully Crawlable, and Fully Indexable. Basic crawlability requirements will prevent other facets of development from overriding search robot access, and basic indexability requirements will allow engines to properly discern themes of pages, and the site as a whole.

2) Building business cases - Each scenario is different, but here are a few questions that can help serve as building blocks for natural search business cases:

a. How much has been invested in search prior to redesign?

b. How will current site modifications positively or negatively impact search investments?

c. How much is a site conversion worth (sales, desired actions, etc.)?

d. Will proposed modifications increase or decrease the cost of acquisition via natural search?

e. How much revenue is natural search currently driving through a site?

f. Will site modifications increase or decrease natural search revenue or conversions?

g. What is the market value of natural traffic based on corresponding bid prices in various pay-per-click engines?

3) Get a "Search Chair" up to the table - You can't play if you don't have the players in the game. A search specialist will continue to educate other team members throughout the development process. Ideally, the search chair is empowered by senior project owners or executives to facilitate its success.

4) Creative adversity - One of the best ways to get around creative adversity is to clearly lay out the framework for goals at the start of any project. Designers should also be aware of the impact of their role on search engine performance. Increase awareness by educating contributors about search principles, and establishing collective goals that are understood and followed by each player. Designing for both search engines and accessibility also allows the development and creative teams to work within the set boundaries while still exercising creativity and vision.

5) Search education - It's no coincidence that most successful enterprise search engine marketers are also good search educators. If you have worked on enough search projects and have some presentation experience, commit your thoughts to PowerPoint and share them with your fellow team members in advance of the project. Education is key throughout all stages of the development process, whether it is in a group setting or one-on-one.

6) For Search Engine Marketers: Establishing Balance - Balance can be achieved by first understanding that all aspects of natural search performance can't be controlled, especially when multiple users and goals are being served. Counter this by optimizing within brand guidelines, complementing Flash with search-friendly tactics when there is no other choice, and considering all site goals and requirements when creating search strategies. Take a breath and make search work the best way possible while staying within all goals.

7) For Search Engine Marketers: Integrating Search with Tangible Business Goals - Business goals should always drive search strategy. Start by defining these goals up front, determine the value of an action, and then assess how search is currently serving these goals. And always report on how search continued to meet these objectives, rather than just rankings or other various search changes. Good clients or marketers usually have a concept of conversion values so that they can spend their ad dollars wisely. If your client (external or internal) does not have a value placed on certain actions, bring it to his or her attention and try to establish a metric on which everyone will be measured. If clients are not measuring the search value of conversion and business goals, then one of your greatest accomplishments may be to help them turn on the lights by demonstrating what they are really getting from natural search.

Source: MediaPost

Balance it out: Natural Search and Paid Search Marketing

2006-12-01T17:36:00.000+05:30

Internet advertising is gaining a large share of the advertiser’s spend, and Search Marketing has a lot to do with it. According to a study in the US, Internet ad revenues will touch $ 18 Billion in 2007, and with the growing popularity of search marketing, the advertiser’s dependence on graphic ads/banners will reduce dramatically. In fact, at the IAMAI Search Engine Marketing conference held in Mumbai, Rajiv Prabhakar,(Head-Marketing) for Sharekhan, disclosed that almost 50 per cent of his company’s marketing budget is allotted to the Internet, and 50 per cent of those budgets are invested in search marketing.

Other facts from the US are encouraging, too. On an average, Internet users use 2.4 search engines, with the average number of search results per query as high as a million. The average number of words in a search query is 2.6, which means that Internet users are becoming more specific in their searches, a result of low patience levels. So, a person will probably key in ‘women’s shoes’ instead of simply ‘shoes’, which wasn’t the case earlier.

There is a certain level of difference between natural search and paid search (sponsored links). For example, while paid search involves high risks and high returns, marketers shouldn’t ignore the benefits of natural search. A good balance of the two is necessary.

Natural search is the core offering of any search engine, so it is important to invest in it, too. This can be done by altering the content on one’s website to make sure it shows up on the ever important first page of the search engine results. This can be achieved by following a 3 step simple process.

1) The first step of the ladder is ‘Keyword Generation’. A marketer needs to link certain relevant keywords with his site, so that when the user searches for that word, his site is thrown up. Introspection in this regard is very helpful. A website owner must first analyze what it is that visitors surf the most on his own website. This will help him along.

2) The second step is ‘Trafficking’, in which creative and landing page optimization are highlighted. When a surfer lands on the website after using a search engine, he is sometimes taken to the home page of the site. A better option is to ensure that his landing page is a relevant one, where the information he is looking for is present.

3) The last step which is ‘Monitoring’ is important, including constantly updating keywords. Pull out those keywords you’re losing money on. A website owner must ensure his site has unique, good quality content, which should not be duplicated as far as possible. Further, the same keyword should not appear several times on the same page of the site, just so that it throws up during a search. This kind of keyword spamming can result in that site being blacklisted by search engines. Further, URL structures should be kept short and page re-directs should be avoided.

Update by Sunny: Search marketing is not a vehicle for branding; banner ads can do that. Search marketing is more about immediate return on investment. But at the same time, one cannot undermine the importance of Paid Search as it provides a faster return on investment as compared to Natural Search and gives us the desired results.

Click Fraud could undermine the boom in Online Advertising

2006-11-29T17:23:00.000+05:30

Internet advertising is booming. The industry has gone from $9.6 billion in revenue in 2001 to $27 billion this year.And it is still early days. The internet accounts for only 5% of total spending on advertising, but that figure is expected to reach at least 20% in the next few years. The single largest category within this flourishing industry, accounting for nearly half of all spending, is "Pay-Per-Click" advertising, which is used by firms both large and small to promote their wares.

It works like this. Advertisers bid on keywords that they believe potential customers will be interested in. This enables internet firms such as Google, the market leader, and Yahoo!, its smaller rival, to display advertisements alongside the results of internet searches. Somebody searching for a particular type of wine, for example, might see advertisements from wine merchants. Google, Yahoo! and other firms also place ads on affiliates' websites, so wine merchants' advertisements might also appear on a wine-appreciation site. The advertiser pays only when a consumer clicks on an ad; the owner of the website where the ad was displayed then receives a small commission.

The benefits of the pay-per-click approach over traditional advertising (television, radio, print and billboards) are obvious. Since advertisers pay only to reach the small subset who actually respond to an advertisement, the quality of the leads generated is very high, and advertisers are prepared to pay accordingly. The price per click varies from $0.10 to as much as $30, depending on the keyword, though the average is around $0.50. "Mesothelioma", for instance, the name of an asbestos-related illness, is an especially valuable keyword, because lawyers are prepared to pay a lot to make contact with sufferers in the hope of representing them in a lucrative compensation lawsuit. Google made most of its $6.1 billion in revenue last year from pay-per-click advertising.

But as pay-per-click advertising has grown into a huge industry, concern has mounted over so-called "click fraud", bogus clicks that do not come from genuinely interested customers. It takes two main forms. If you click repeatedly on the advertisements on your own website, or get other people or machines to do so on your behalf, you can generate a stream of bogus commissions. Click fraud can also be used by one company against another: clicking on a rival firm's advertisements can saddle it with a huge bill. Bogus clicks are thought to account for around 10% of all click traffic, though nobody knows for sure.

In the wake of these legal challenges, Google and Yahoo! recently joined a working group at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a trade association, which will establish standards for pay-per-click advertising, including the introduction of industry-funded auditing and certification, by the middle of 2007. In February Snap, a search engine launched "pay-per-action", a new model in which advertisers pay only if a click on an ad is followed by an action such as a purchase or a download. Google is testing a similar model and Turn.com, another ad network, adopted the pay-per-action model a few weeks ago.

Update by Sunny: Will the Pay-Per-Action put an end to click fraud? Pay-per-action will be a niche, since converting a click into an action depends on a variety of factors such as the ease of use of the advertiser's website. Google and its peers will be reluctant to be so dependent on factors outside their control. But I think pay-per-action could become a real alternative to pay-per-click. As bigger companies spend more on internet advertising, they will demand more accountability and a wider range of options. At the very least, that means clamping down on click fraud, but it also presents an opportunity for entrepreneurs to invent new models that are less vulnerable to abuse.

Populist Search Vs. Social Media

2006-11-28T17:33:00.000+05:30

Search Engine Marketing might seem old-hat and mainstream compared to emerging social media channels, but search's auction-based media buying is far more revolutionary. Despite the hype surrounding the new social advertising channels, however, some of the largest deals lately have involved sites that rebuild barriers to entry that search marketing demolished. The future of advertising might look like a mashup of the past.

One of the most radical things about search engine marketing is that anyone can take part in it. To start, you generally need a credit card, $5 for a setup fee, a basic web site, and internet access. For just $1 a day, you can start making the phone ring, and if your business can scale, you can wind up spending over $1 million a month with search.

Spending more money on search marketing, not factoring in the use of agencies or technology buys more reach and frequency, rather than perks or discounts off the rate card. For search advertising itself, the market sets the price, and advertisers can only buy more or less of it; beyond that, advertisers can then work to buy it more efficiently.

The populist dreams of search marketing haven't been perfectly realized so far in terms of every last mom-and-pop business joining in, but the search engines have come a long way. Additionally, through services like pay-per-call advertising and some types of mobile marketing, advertisers don't even need a Web site, dropping one more barrier to entry. With any advertiser being able to take part in the efficiencies of auction-based media online, the democratization of marketing is undeniably real.

While search marketing is still in its early stages, it's hardly a decade old; much attention now is turning toward social media, which is hailed as the future. Yet the future, by some indicators, looks more like the past when compared to the auction-based system. As examples, we'll turn to MySpace and YouTube, which together have reached $2.5 billion in deals with Google this year (the former through an advertising partnership, the latter through acquisition). There are some notable differences between buying with the new players and buying on Google.

The biggest differences are evident when you consider what more money buys you. On a basic level, it's possible to run text-based contextual ads on YouTube and MySpace for little money and with little effort. Yet by buying well into the five figures of display media on MySpace, you can have a custom profile that includes videos, mobile downloads, IM content, basic Flash content, and other features; six-figure spending levels buy even more features, including mashups, personalized photos, and RSS and podcast feeds. Similarly, YouTube is looking to do media deals at a certain five-figure threshold, and it sets six-figure thresholds to let marketers own custom channels.

It's a far cry from the auction-based system, and these buys lend themselves much more to martini lunches than market efficiencies. That should be very comforting to some. It's a sign that while every medium will likely flirt with the auction-based system and perhaps even adopt it for a large chunk of inventory, media buying and planning skills will remain relevant. Some media, such as a souped-up MySpace profile, don't lend themselves well to auctions. If that means some smaller businesses can't advertise there as well, those advertisers will still be welcomed by the search engines.

Auction-based media, as exemplified through search engine marketing, won't replace the old models. To enable online properties with an audience and a compelling advertising vehicle to reach users en masse, a traditional media deal established at a set price and settled with a handshake may be the most efficient kind of buy. The bigger challenge will be for Google, which has earned its billions through auctioning media and now finds itself selling media the old-fashioned way.

That the future will resemble the past shouldn't be so surprising. Social media is media, after all, no matter how you sell it.

Source: MediaPost

A Nostalgic Perspective On Search

2006-11-25T01:32:00.000+05:30

It’s incredible how different the industry is today than when many of us got started. Since the late '90s, there have been periods of such ferocious change that it was hard to keep pace. Figuring out how to drive qualified visitors has always been the mission. Today it's still challenging, as a much larger number of Web sites is vying for presence and visitors, but the number of viable channels is much greater.

The predominant engines of the past era are largely afterthoughts today. When is the last time you did a search on WebCrawler, Northern Light or Snap / NBCi?

Paid search wasn't any sort of a factor in the early years. Then, GOTO came along and bidding for positions was born. GOTO became Overture, which is now Yahoo. Many of today's advertisers probably weren't around when the top couple of paid spots on Google were called Premium Listings and were sold on a flat rate per-keyword basis, with an annual contract.

Who can forget the travails of LookSmart? In its heyday, it supplied paid results that appeared on the front page of MSN. As early adopters of a CPC model, it was an extremely cost-efficient channel. When LookSmart lost its distribution through MSN, the expectation was that its traffic volumes would drop dramatically. The opposite occurred, as pure MSN eyeballs were substituted for, we never figured out what.

For the past few years, the industry has ridden the shoulders of the big three (Google, Yahoo & MSN). Ask Jeeves has rebranded as ASK, yet it is not core to most programs. Given the resources of IAC Corp. and the breadth of its properties (Ticketmaster, Match.com, CitySearch, etc.) along with the commitment of Barry Diller, one expects some additional brand presence and a higher percentage of searches through its channels.

A noticeable shock to the paid search movement is the click fraud issue. We are not really sure how much of an issue it is, though. It seems like a bigger deal to individuals on the sidelines than to those who are participating in the marketplace and who are capitalizing on the opportunity that paid search presents. The buzz today is social marketing. Sites like MySpace, YouTube, flickr and Facebook are capturing huge amounts of attention as both sites that people frequent, along with their impact on boosting natural presence within the major engines. In addition to showing up in the natural results of Google, etc., look for contextual ads to begin appearing there in the near future. Another powerful dynamic of these sites is that they generally appeal to a younger demographic. This is significant in that as search matures and new visitors emerge, sites that cater to the interests of a younger generation are becoming popular.

Pick any metric, and it's clear we are in a growth industry. This benefits marketers on all sides of the fence.

Change is the constant within search. That's a function of the relative newness of the industry and the amount of attention and dollars it has received. If you are new to the space, dive in, as the opportunities abound. If you have been around for a while, take a step back to see how far one has come.

Source: MediaPost

Seven Challenges Of SEM Planning And Execution

2006-11-23T11:00:00.000+05:30

There are some common challenges that are frequently encountered from the Client Side perspective, the Web Design Agency perspective and from the Search Firm perspective while performing Search Engine Marketing {SEM} activities. A few elements are found to be recurring obstacles in the quest for high search performance on Fortune 1000 level Web sites:

1) Integrating search as a business or technical requirement. Setting up search as a business and technical requirement removes 90 percent of the headaches experienced when integrating in the middle or end of the development process. Good designers and developers are experts at solving problems, and even if they don't have a lot of search experience, they can often solve these issues when given the opportunity. If you've started in the middle or end of a design project, performance will ultimately suffer, and an additional toll will be taken out on dev and design teams who may have to rework some of the foundational aspects of the site.

2) Building business cases. This is one of the most difficult nuts to crack, because natural search is so unpredictable, and most marketers don't place monetary values on desired actions such as e-mail subscriptions, Request for Proposals or other actions. Major obstacles for building business cases include scoping potential natural rankings and traffic, lack of accuracy in keyword metrics tools, unpredictability of natural click-through rates, and lack of a dollar value on desired user actions. Although it is still difficult, an attempt should be made at making a case when possible, even if it is directional. More concrete business cases can be made by calculating the potential loss of paving over previous search engine optimization engagements in a redesign and auditing what a client is currently getting from natural search as it relates to existing business goals like leads, sales e-mail subscriptions, etc. Paid search cost-per-click bids also offer a real-world indicator of the value of natural traffic alone.

3) The "Search Chair" is missing at the table. If search is not recognized as having a major role in the development process, then performance will suffer. This means that search should help drive research, planning, content, marketing messages, development, launch and other stages of Web design and maintenance.

4) Creative adversity. Many designers view search as a threat to creativity. When requirements are laid out for a variety of different audiences, search shouldn't impede the creative process, but rather should create a new framework for a picture to be painted.

5) Search education. A little bit of search engine optimization 101 goes a long way to help meet overall search objectives. I've presented many four- to eight-hour client seminars to audiences ranging from five to 30 people, and the positive impact of education on natural search efforts is nothing short of amazing. Give an educational seminar and invite the whole gang, including senior-level executives, project managers, information architects, content writers, developers and other team members. Increased awareness also helps knock down barriers when approval is needed for a wide variety of search-related tasks.

In another section of the presentation, I outlined some of the common mistakes that search firms make when delivering recommendations to Web development and design agencies. The two following views were culled from what I observed of search firms as a search strategist and facilitator acting on behalf of Web design clients:

6) Lack of balance. Search specialists often accuse Flash designers of being one-sided by not considering search as part of their process. Optimizers are often just as guilty of this same type of omission. Consideration must be given to accessibility, creative elements, brand laws and how users will ultimately perceive the page.

7) Not tying search into tangible business goals. Rankings are great; traffic is better, but conversions contributing to defined business goals rule. Unfortunately, while many firms are good at tactical recommendations, some stop short of attributing the value of search to the bottom line. To be fair, not all clients and marketers spend their budgets with these ROI goals in mind, and they often have limited offline tracking capabilities needed to attribute search's actual business value to their business.

Source: MediaPost

Yahoo, Newspapers form Major Alliance

2006-11-22T19:19:00.000+05:30

Yahoo and a consortium of 76 newspapers nationwide have entered into a far-reaching alliance encompassing classified advertising, content, and search that signals a new level of cooperation between newspapers and their erstwhile Internet rivals.

The first phase of the deal will allow the newspapers' help wanted advertisers to post classifieds on Yahoo HotJobs, while the newspapers' online career sections will be powered by HotJobs. The job sites will be co-branded between Yahoo and local newspapers in 38 states including The San Francisco Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Over the long term, the partnership is expected to extend to other types of advertising and content-sharing such as incorporating Yahoo search and mapping into newspapers' sites and distributing newspaper content through Yahoo search, news, and other sections of the portal.

For Yahoo, the deal provides a much-needed boost amid slowing ad revenue sales and widespread criticism that the company has missed out on key strategic opportunities to competitors such as Google and Fox Interactive Media.

Earlier this month, Google unveiled plans to sell print ads in 50 major newspapers, including publications owned by Gannett, The Tribune Company, and The New York Times Co.

For newspapers, the Yahoo alliance provides the framework for a comprehensive strategy for tackling the Web after years of losing ad market share to the Internet portals and free listings sites such as Craigslist.

To read the whole story, click here.

Source: MediaPost

Online Video Influences IT Purchases

2006-11-21T17:11:00.000+05:30

Marketers that want to influence business executives should consider buying ads in emerging media, including online video, social networks and wikis. That's among the conclusions of a new study by Universal McCann and KnowledgeStorm.

"As B2B marketers continue to increase online spending, they need to move beyond traditional banner advertisements and search marketing to explore and experiment with emerging media such as online video, social networks and wikis," stated the study.

For the report, researchers surveyed more than 5,300 business and IT professionals last month, asking them about online video, social networks and wikis. Nearly all respondents said they viewed online video, while sizable portions also said they use wikis and social networking sites.

Specifically, 63% of respondents said they view online videos at least once a week, while an additional 27% do so once a month. Additionally, 82% of respondents said they share online video at least monthly (44% do so once a month, 32% weekly, and 6% daily).

More than half of respondents i.e. 57% said online video had an impact on work-related IT purchase decisions. Previous studies by Universal McCann and KnowledgeStorm concluded that podcasts influenced 27% of business executives, while blogs persuaded 53%.

A majority of respondents also said they used wikis, such as Wikipedia. Forty-seven percent said they were very comfortable with the wiki platform, while 39% said they were somewhat comfortable. Business executives appear to be less enthusiastic about social networking sites, with just 24% describing themselves as very comfortable and 42% saying they were somewhat comfortable with such sites. Still, 69% said they visited social networking sites at least monthly (28% once a month, 28% weekly, and 13% daily).

Source: MediaPost

Trends in User Behaviour

2006-11-21T11:45:00.000+05:30

In a series of research studies over the past eight months, the most salient trend emerging among users is that of usability and user experience. People are no longer timidly manipulated by the technology, as they were at the inception of the Web but rather expect sites to work to meet their needs, instead of the other way around.

Of course, the issue of user needs is becoming more important as greater numbers of companies bring their business to the Web. Usability has become a differentiating factor in many cases, coupled with the trend in user expectations; users expect sites to be intuitive, easy to use and seamless across the board.

People expect sites to be intuitive: Even as recently as two or three years ago, Web users tended to blame themselves for their inability to find information or complete tasks online. People thought that they needed to adapt in order to meet the evolving demands of this new technology.

Not so today. People not only expect to be able to use Web sites in a seamless fashion, they expect sites to anticipate and meet their every need. A refreshing expectation, but one that places additional pressure on companies looking for customers.

People still don't read online: In fact, it seems that people are less patient with online copy today than they were in the past. This could be the result of smaller text, higher screen resolutions or simply because people expect an interface to communicate how it is to be used just by its very appearance. Imagine if you went to a restaurant but, in order to get inside, you had to read lengthy instructions on how to use the doorknob. This would be a pain, and you'd probably go to another restaurant. Web sites are the same way.

When evaluating a bridal Web site, one bride-to-be wanted to see how a bridesmaid dress would look in different colors. There was a series of color swatches immediately to the left of the dress in question, and the user clicked on them, expecting the dress to change colors. When nothing happened, the bride-to-be was disappointed, saying that she'd visit other sites to see if they had similar dresses in different colors.

This participant, a sophisticated user of technology, did not read the small print next to the color swatches on the left that said, "Roll over color swatches at the bottom of the page to see dress color options." Since she didn't read the copy, she couldn't figure it out, and went to a competitor's site instead. It's like the old saying goes, if the user can't find it, the functionality's not there.

People appreciate simplicity. There are a lot of beautiful Web sites out there. Unfortunately, many of these are too good-looking to use. Sites adorned with extraneous Flash animations, videos, and lots of large images confuse users and make it difficult for them to accomplish their goals. People want simple designs that are easy to use while being pleasant to look at. They don't want to wade through lengthy intros and convoluted navigation in order to find what they're looking for.

When evaluating a hospital Web site, users unfailingly complimented the compelling imagery and animation splashed across the site's home page. They liked the color scheme, the photographs and the messaging. Unfortunately, none of the participants were able to use the site to find the name of a physician, which was the task they were asked to complete.

This is not to say that sites shouldn't strive for beauty, or that Flash animations and imagery are ill-advised. Carefully designed and positioned animations can actually help users get information, and images can lead people through a task-completion process. Designers should strive for beauty in simplicity in order to foster a site's usability.

People look for user-generated content: No, users are not all clamoring for elaborate MySpace pages or detailed blogs. That type of activity is too time-consuming for people trying to make an investment decision, or figure out what their health symptoms mean. However, people do look for user feedback and customer testimonials, especially in the health-care and travel industries.

Update By Sunny: While it is possible, on some level, to "take the industry pulse" in terms of user experience, it is also important to continually explore and refine our assumptions about what users do online--to help us create sites that will provide the best experience possible.

Source: MediaPost

Click and Fly

2006-11-21T11:18:00.000+05:30

Those of us who are advertisers and marketers have a lot to be thankful for. Despite the anxiety of past and potential terrorist attacks, the online travel industry is booming. According to the Travel Industry Association, there are approximately 90 million online travelers--about 44 percent of the U.S. adult population. Two-thirds (66%) of online travelers, or 59.4 million U.S. adults, used the Internet to make travel plans in the last year.

How are users finding out about airline schedules, airports, ticket prices and the like? To no surprise, 77% of those surveyed are using search engines as their first stop in the online travel planning process. Company-run Web sites and destination sites are also popular (used by 63 percent each). And online travel agency sites are used by over half (52%) of online travel planners.

So let's talk revenues. Online advertising revenues are expected to double over the next three years, with next year's revenues predicted to hit $80 billion. Travel accounts for 24% of this market-including online ads, search, and e-mail marketing.

If the numbers are so great, then what's the problem? Well, online travelers are used to hopping from site to site. They know how to navigate and seek out the best fares, most flexible schedules, etc. If you are a brand marketer or advertiser, it is critical to brand your company, site or service. For instance, take a look around at all the major travel sites. From booking engines to airline sites to travel agency Web sites, they all look pretty much the same.

Some solutions: Find ways to personalize your site. Make it sticky so users will come back. Offer e-mail sign-ups for users to get information on sales, promotions and the like. Consider enabling mobile applications, too. For instance, users type in their mobile numbers on the site, then any schedule change or update is sent via SMS to users' phones, bringing a positive brand association.

The eMarketer report broke out online revenues for airline tickets, lodging, rental cars, vacation packages, Amtrak, and cruises. Within that group, online revenues for airline tickets were the strongest, with projected revenues of $32.8 billion this year, according to Forrester Research data cited in the eMarketer report. Hotel revenues came in second, with only $16.4 billion, half the projected revenues of airline tickets.

Why do you think hotel revenues are so far behind? Well, it seems consumers (even those online travel planners) pick up the phone to make hotel bookings. If you have used a hotel site you'd know why. They are often hard to navigate. It also seems that many sites don't have the most updated information. For instance, a site may say that there are 10 rooms left, but when you get to the booking engine (often times many clicks away), you find there are no rooms left. Traveling with someone who is disabled and needs special room accommodations? Children or a group of people? Few sites allow any areas to input this critical information.

I hate to admit it, but a live person is often better and more effective for making a hotel booking.

Source: MediaPost

The Agency's Role in New Media

2006-11-15T11:07:00.000+05:30

Questions abound regarding the role of the traditional agency in the new media landscape: Customization vs. Automation? Creativity vs. Standardization? Professional vs. User-Generated? What will become of an industry dedicated to planning, buying and creating media messaging as the medium and the methods shift to digital? The answer is in the technologies.

Google isn't the only one who wants to do create THE advertising OS. Microsoft is certainly concentrating pretty heavily on the area as well. It is clear why Microsoft feels the development of these advertising technologies is right in their sweet spot, since one can so readily describe the next generation of advertising technologies as an OS for a multibillion-dollar industry. Beyond the big players, start-ups are popping up everywhere, trying to enable the next generation of online advertising. Most of these start-ups want to be bolted onto (by acquisition) Microsoft's, Google's, or Yahoo's own OS solution for advertisers.

The most common misnomer is that these advancements in advertising technologies will do the job of the agency but these technologies are tools, not solutions. The human element is necessary to use these tools to find innovative solutions. This will continue to be the role of the agency.

Search Engine Marketing is a perfect example of this. Search Engine Marketing technologies spawned an entire industry of professionals. Sure, since it's easy to use the Ad Words OS, some businesses are able to create and manage their own SEM efforts but the value of the agency is in its ability to professionally and artfully wield SEM tools. If anything, because emerging advertising technologies democratize the ability for small advertisers to compete with larger advertisers, there is even a greater premium placed on having professionals executing on your behalf to separate your message from the crowd.

And since SEM, in unison with other areas of expertise, helps agencies to provide higher return through integrated marketing efforts, this makes SEM a perfect fit as a service offering for the complete 21^st century agency. So the questions become: What technologies/tools will agencies have to master to continue to deliver value to their clients? What new service industries will result from emerging advertising platforms? As with the SEM industry, will we see:

UGVM (User-Generated Video Marketing): Agencies develop divisions dedicated to optimizing platforms that allow any advertiser to slice UGV advertising opportunities by content, genre and audience demographics and bid for placement. One aspect of this service entails creating the proper creative inventory of video content, perhaps bowed by other technologies using modular video content creation to create volumes of content in real time.

DPPM (Digital Product Placement Marketing): Given the increased importance of product placement, due to the decreased effectiveness of traditional 30 second spots, digital product placement technologies, in combination with market-making technologies for product placement, will necessitate entire divisions of 2.0 agencies dedicating themselves to the optimization of client product placement within a world of highly fragmented content.

Regardless of the specific outcomes, there is one fact that will be true for any new technology offered; it will be up to the agencies to create the theories that will drive the market. It will be agencies that will build the theories that allow a scalable bid market to work outside of the comfortable world of direct and performance based online marketing (where measurable ROI determines a bid price).

The agency will be the market maker looking for the arbitrage opportunities. Agencies will use their advertising OS to find opportunities where the price of attention is below the value their theories dictate they can extract with creative and integrated marketing approaches for their clients.

Seeing the opportunity will only be the first step. It will take unprecedented collaboration and execution to gain any advantage for the client in a world where anyone can play with knobs on a Google advertising OS.

Source: MediaPost

Gone in 4 Seconds ..... Value of an Online Customer !!

2006-11-13T15:38:00.000+05:30

The research by Akamai revealed users' dwindling patience with websites that take time to show up. It found 75% of the 1,058 people asked would not return to websites that took longer than four seconds to load.

The time it took a site to appear on screen came second to high prices and shipping costs in the list of shoppers' pet-hates, the research revealed.

Akamai consulted those who shop regularly online to find out what they like and dislike about e-tailing sites. About half of mature net-shoppers - who have been buying online for more than two years or who spend more than $1,500 (£788) a year online - ranked page-loading time as a priority.

It found that one-third of those questioned abandon sites that take time to load, are hard to navigate or take too long to handle the checkout process.

The four-second threshold is half the time previous research, conducted during the early days of the web-shopping boom, suggested that shoppers would wait for a site to finish loading.

To make matters worse, the research found that the experience shoppers have on a retail site colours their entire view of the company behind it.

About 30% of those responding said they formed a "negative perception" of a company with a badly put-together site or would tell their family and friends about their experiences.

Further research by Akamai found that almost half of the online stores in the list of the top 500 US shopping sites take longer than the four-second threshold to finish loading.

The survey questioned 1,058 net shoppers during the first six months of 2006. Consultants Jupiter Research did the survey for Akamai.

Update by Sunny: Now the above survey was of US web surfers and i have a feeling that in India it would surely not be a second wait. Dialup connections and poor internet speeds would help ecommerce website owners in India stretch that 4 seconds to atleast 10-15 seconds loading time. But it would be interesting to know how long does and Indian online customer wait before abandoning a site! It could be really valuable information now that so many ecommerce players in travel, retail and others are mushrooming in the Indian online space.

Source: BBC News

The importance of On-Page Optimization, Internal Linking, Maintenance, Content, and Internal Site Control

2006-11-13T10:54:00.000+05:30

What is usually lost in this question is that search presence doesn't end at links alone, and that good on-page optimization is needed to round out the picture to fully take advantage of the opportunities that strong link equity and off-page factors bring.
At the end of the day, if you have off-page credibility, then the engines will pay closer attention to "What you say about yourself."
For many established Web sites, particularly for Fortune 500 company sites, deeper introspection about internal optimization strategies is often more pressing than the issue of link building.

External search factors - The Fortune 500

Over the years, one has found that most Fortune 500-level clients require different search approaches than small-to-medium sized businesses, or other companies that are building new sites, mainly because these sites are already well established in terms of theme, age, authority, freshness and trust. From an optimization perspective, these sites are like a garden ready to grow and search performance is directly proportional to how well the seeds are planted and tended.
With link development and the age of the domain being major external factors in how search engines view websites, consider these statistics for the 2006 Fortune Top 10 (Google PageRank is also provided to show overall perception of off-page factors):

1. ExxonMobil.com: 83,810 links; online since November 25, 1998, PR7
2. WalMart.com: 2,222,709 links; online since February 25, 1995, PR8
3. GM.com: 243,091 links; online since January 16, 1992, PR9
4. Chevron.com: 71,468 links; online since April 13, 1990, PR8
5. Ford.com: 294,752 links; online since September 1, 1988, PR8
6. ConocoPhillips.com: 38,249 links; online since January 13, 2001, PR8
7. GE.com: 312,236 links; online since August 5, 1986, PR8
8. Citigroup.com: 132,977 links; online since April 6, 1998, PR8
9. AIG.com: 82,227 links; online since October 25, 1995, PR7
10. IBM.com: 4,441,167 links; online since March 19, 1986, PR9
Link source:Yahoo Site Explorer

These sites already have major search engine credibility when it comes to off-page factors, thus making internal strategy even more critical for these companies. This does not mean that link building efforts should be abandoned, only that internal factors should be treated with higher importance in the grand scope of search marketing efforts and that resources should be balanced accordingly. For sites such as the ones listed above, refocusing on internal site management can also help identify future areas to target external link development, especially in thematic areas where the site may not be performing as well.

Major sites, take note: These are some additional reasons why internal site optimization and maintenance is alive and kicking for established corporations, major destination and authority sites, and other highly-popular destinations:

You've got links: Most Fortune 500 sites have already accrued anywhere from thousands to millions of links. Proportionally speaking, search efforts and resources may be best put forth into maintenance and development of the legacy site for search benefits.

Your major theme has been long established with the engines: As noted above, major site themes for legacy sites are already largely established by the major engines. So a major airline should expect to have an easier time using internal optimization strategies to rank for the term "flights to Dallas."

You're already a link magnet: Sites with Fortune 500 link momentum tend to pick up links on their own, either from news sources, blogs or efforts from their own PR department. When your CEO speaks, people link.

Your foundation is set: Fortune 500 sites are not designed on new domains, they are most often re-designed on trusted legacy domains containing volumes of existing authority links. Treat your legacy links with great care, because your search presence is more dependent on your own site handling, rather than the way engines handle your site.

Negotiating internal changes is key: The internal dynamics of Fortune 500 sites and development teams can change more often than the search engines do. This changes the SEO game, in the sense that success is determined to a certain degree by how well internal sites' changes are managed and negotiated.

Source: MediaPost

My (Early) Predictions for 2007

2006-11-09T14:10:00.000+05:30

At the beginning of 2006, some industry analysts felt that 2006 would be a calm and quiet year of applying the knowledge and the ideas from 2005, while 2007 would be the year of breakthrough and new ideas. I guess they were off a little on that one! This year certainly saw much growth and evolution in the Internet landscape--but I think 2007 is going to be one of the most influential years we will ever see. Want to hear more predictions? Read on.

1) Copyright and user-generated content. First of all, Google will finalize the deal and will put to rest two of the larger issues surrounding the potential monetization of YouTube: copyright and user-generated content. Google will surely have to go to court to defend YouTube, but there's no doubt that legal precedent will be set and we will see the establishment of a compensation model for the redistribution of video content through the Internet. YouTube's growth is dependent on this, as is every other site looking to utilize video, so it's impossible that this will drag out beyond the coming year. In addition, Google's technology will be applied to UGC and we'll find ways to ensure brands are being shepherded through this type of content. All of the sites allowing users to upload video content and looking to run ads alongside them will be able to sell these ads at a premium, especially for in-stream, above where they are currently.

2) Archive television catalogues will go online with burn-to-order biz models. AOL's In2TV has not picked up the steam as anticipated but what one can foresee is that the other studios will start to follow suit while the general consumer becomes more aware this content is now available online. What one can predict is that major networks like ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox will begin to launch their catalogues online and may even move to "burn-to-order" business models where consumers will be able to create their very own compilations of their favorite classic TV shows and burn them to DVDs. This model has worked in the past with music, and now that iTunes is making it easier and easier to sell this type of content, one can anticipate that studios will look to offer their own solutions. It's only a matter of time before I can burn my favorite episodes of "Nash Bridges"--which will be great news, since I can't find them on TV anymore and I know they aren't available on DVD.

3) Social networks will embrace the long tail. The success of MySpace and Facebook shows us the need for social networking online, but the broad nature of these networks also opens them up to criticism. All the issues surrounding MySpace at the beginning of the year, including parents' concern for their children in that environment, may or may not have been warranted. But the backlash will be that social networks will segment down to smaller sub-segments of the audience and follow the path the long tail is pointing toward. We may see age groups focused in specific networks, or behavioral mindsets focused on these groups. My feeling is that the "everything to everyone" feel of the current social network model will go away, and as a result advertisers will have more targeted groups to speak with; these networks will be able to charge a premium to be there. Of course this opens up the opportunity for my next prediction....

4) Personal start pages will rise in importance again (with behavioral targeting). As our tastes continue to segment further, we will look to find a single site where we can start our day online, one that aggregates the passwords and links to all of our favorite sites and networks. The proverbial "digital dashboard" which we've spoken of for many years, gathered together by Yahoo, Google and some of the other portals, will likely become important again. Sites like Digg allow us to see what's new and where to go, but they don't help us aggregate our personal Internet. As I want to keep track of my news sources, my entertainment sources, my social networks and all the other places I like to visit, these sites become extremely important once again. These personal pages will likely be created by someone with a strong understanding of behavioral targeting--because if this is where I always start my day, they can keep track of where I go and how, to personalize the Web for me. As of last week, we achieved 100 million sites online, making the Internet too big for anyone to surf all on their own. They need help in making the Internet digestible, and this could possibly be the next re-refresh trend we might see.

Update by Sunny: Well, i am fully convinced on the prospects of Social Networking as the next big thing in creating user-defined groups but the 'Digital Dashboard' concept is definately what we can expect to change the face of behavioral targetting.

Source: Media Post

Google trials Newspaper Ad Sales

2006-11-08T17:08:00.000+05:30

US newspapers, under pressure from an advertising exodus online, have decided to consort with the ‘enemy' in a Google test that allows customers to buy space in 50 top US titles.

The trial is limited to a small group of 100 advertisers initially but, if successful, will be rolled out next year. The newspapers involved include those owned by Gannett, Tribune Company and the New York Times.

The system will work similarly to Google's AdSense which sells ad space on thousands of websites via online auctions. Unlike AdSense, however, the newspaper program will enable advertisers to pick specific newspapers and even specific sections of papers. The publications may reject ads that do not fit or do not meet standards of taste and can set prices on which advertisers can bid.

Google will not earn anything from the test, but will take a cut of the advertising revenue when the service is opened up to all-comers. The company keeps around 20% of revenue for internet ads it places.

Update by Sunny: Well, i personally think that Google is on a buying spree and is now focussing on consolidating offline media by bringing Print Media under its 'Big Umbrella' of services. Only time will tell where they reach !!

Source: WARC News

Niche-Targeted Social Networks Find Audiences

2006-11-08T15:59:00.000+05:30

Tanner Stransky, a 23-year-old editorial assistant living in Manhattan, has been a devotee of Facebook since college and has been on MySpace for the past few years as well. But recently he joined a third network, LinkedIn, which aims to be a career-oriented social-networking service for professionals.

More and more, multi-social networkers like him are becoming the norm as the social-networking space, after being carried the past year and half on the shoulders of sites such as MySpace and Facebook, gets far more diversified. And whether the talk about an exodus from MySpace and Facebook is just a seasonal slowdown or truly indicates a trend, there's a host of niche-targeted social networks just waiting to catch the defectors.

Benjamin Sun is looking for a few former MySpace devotees. Incidentally, his company, Community Connect, has been around longer than MySpace and has been profitable for several years, thanks to a revenue stream that includes advertising and subscription revenues. Soon, he'll launch Glee.com, a social network for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender crowd. It joins his other sites, BlackPlanet, MiGente and AsianAvenue, which aim to attract blacks, Hispanics and Asians, respectively.

'Better to be niche'

"We believe it's better to be niche," he said. "Look at the real-world communities -- they're made up of pockets of people with similar interests." While social networks all look fairly similar now, he said, they're in a primordial stage. "They'll start branching out and super-serving the audience and giving value that you can't find in a general-market site."

At 1Up.com, a content-heavy social site where gamers trade tips, stories, opinions and gossip, the philosophy is that people don't need to choose a single social network -- they can be a part of several. Of its members, 50% also belong to MySpace, 18% to Facebook, 9% to Xanga and 6% to Friendster.

"If our members are blogging about general things, they'll do it on MySpace," said Sam Kennedy, editor in chief of 1Up.com, which is part of Ziff Davis Media Group. "But if it's gaming-related, they reserve that for 1Up because they get better reactions."

Drop in traffic numbers

A drop in traffic numbers has made headlines lately for the larger social-networking sites. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, MySpace's U.S. unique visitors fell 4% to 47.2 million in August, and Facebook's were down 12% to 7.8 million. But a Nielsen/NetRatings analyst wrote off the drop to seasonality and said a similar dip occurred in August last year.

Shawn Gold, senior VP-marketing and content at MySpace, said that there are definitely subcultures emerging within his massive social-networking site. And for users who want efficiency, one social network is certainly easier -- and MySpace is continuing to evolve its tools for self-expression, video, mobile and aggregation.

"The opportunity is MySpace's to lose by not evolving the platform," he said.

Tom Gerace is the CEO of Gather.com, a social network for what's been described as the NPR crowd. The site launched publicly in July and has about 90,000 contributing members today, he said. Already it's attracted marketing partners such as Starbucks, Amazon and Volvo.

"We're not trying to be the next Facebook or MySpace," he said. "They're doing a terrific job for the younger set. We're trying to go after people in the prime of their careers, people with disposable incomes, thought leaders."

Source: MediaPost

Google launches new Custom Search Engine {CSE}

2006-11-08T15:05:00.000+05:30

How do you define successful innovation? And is it possible that a new Google service could be neither wildly successful nor innovative, and yet still have a lasting impact on how people search? Questions such as these came to mind when Google recently launched its Custom Search Engine (CSE) as part of its Google Co-Op project.

With the CSE, Google allows publishers to specify or prioritize sites to include in searches which are initiated from a search box on publishers' sites. If the publisher wants, other users can contribute to defining its CSE's search results.

I'm not fully convinced that CSEs will be one of the more widely used Google offerings. Besides, Google's not the only one to think so as others also have similar services. I've enumerated some Pros and Cons of Google's CSE, and I'll leave it to you to decide if it's right for you, or if you think CSEs have legs.

Pro: The G-Lo Effect. There's a formula that keeps reasserting itself: ‘Add Google's brand name to anything else and anything else looks better for it.’ It's a new twist on the classic halo effect. Add Google to the transaction process, and Google Checkout increases conversion rates. Add Google to a 3D atlas, and suddenly there are millions more budding cartographers. Add a Google-branded custom search bar to your site, and the use of your site's search box keeps growing. That's one of the promises, at least.

Con: A Google search box in the wrong place can serve as a distraction. For instance, a retailer would not want a Google CSE on its main page, since the goal is for consumers to make a transaction on their site, not treat the retailer as a portal. There is one way retailers can use CSEs: If a retailer has a microsite, blog, or other online touchpoint that serves as an informational resource for consumers, a CSE could be a welcome addition.

Pro: The CSE is the new and improved version of vertical search. A publisher that uses one is basically developing its own vertical search engine. Someone searching for the latest dirt on the stars would have all their favorite sources in one place, with none of the irrelevant sites. For instance, a Google search on Tom Cruise brings up fan sites, movie pages, photo galleries, and other sites that don't matter to someone who just wants the juicy dirt. A CSE can cut the clutter.

Con: Paid search targeting could suffer. The focus of the CSE results is really on the natural results, not the paid. That's because the natural results become more relevant, while nothing changes with the advertising. For instance, a search for "laptop" in the CSE on Macworld.com brings up search results predominantly related to Macs and iBooks, while the results in Google are all over the map. Yet the ads displayed for the Macworld CSE search are the same as the top ads from the Google search. Given that this includes advertisers only or largely selling PCs, the ads don't provide the same value and even take away from the value of the CSE search.

Pro: CSEs validate an existing model-like Rollyo, a site John Battelle has been touting since its inception, which has offered customized search engines for some time now. There's also Eurekster's Swicki and, the Yahoo Search Builder, which launched in August.

Con: I’m not sure if someone has experienced more traffic on these CSEs on their own blogs. As for Yahoo! Search Builder, it made some noise when it first came out, though I didn't hear much about it until Google launched its CSE site. Blogpulse confirms posts about Yahoo Search Builder spiked with Google's CSE announcement, but Google's announcement received 10 times the peak for Yahoo Search Builder.

Pro: There are already directories of CSEs at Lurpo.com and CustomSearchGuide.com Search functionality with fan pages must be great, right?

Con: There are also fan sites for Paris Hilton and serial killers.

If publishers embrace CSEs, then it could decentralize the search experience for consumers, turn CSE publishers into search engines, and create new targeting opportunities for advertisers.

This future, if it is ever to exist, will be some years away. Should it ever happen, Google might not have come up with the idea, but will be able to take credit for popularizing it. Innovation isn't everything, after all. Google is simply playing to its strengths; its real innovation is in marketing.

Source: MediaPost

Investing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

2006-11-07T18:07:00.000+05:30

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is often perceived as a free means to get your website on top of the Search Engine Rankings as against Pay per Click (PPC) where one has to pay for the keywords to get visibility for their website. This is because SEO helps your website to move up on the Free / Organic / Natural listings on Search Engines as compared to PPC which provides visibility for the website on the Paid / Sponsored listings.

This is a myth which many people follow without realizing the amount of time, effort and money that gets invested into the SEO process over a period of time. SEO is similar to a Brand Building exercise. One has to realize that results are not produced overnight in a SEO process as compared to PPC.

In case of SEO, the service provider will conduct an in depth analysis for the client’s website. The results will be seen after 2 to 3 months time as there are a lot of aspects covered in the analysis such as:

1) Determine Client Strategy

This involves determining whether the client wants to increase visibility for his website, improve rankings on search engines, drive quality traffic to his website, etc.

2) Doing a complete Website Analysis for the Client as well as the Competitors

SEO experts will conduct a complete competitive analysis for the client’s website. This analysis would be in terms of examining the client’s site structure and content management system, reviewing current traffic reports, researching and creating an initial list of potential search terms to optimize for, reviewing competitor’s tactics to get high rankings, etc.

3) Identify relevant keywords and include them on the client’s website

This will be followed by studying the keywords on your website and those used by the competitors by using certain keyword tools. They will then recommend the most relevant keywords for your website and include them on your website.

4) Checking the website for SEO Compliance

The SEO experts will check the website for compliance with Search Engines with respect to the overall design of the website which includes the Page Rank, Title, Body Descriptor, use of Flash elements as they are not detected by search engine crawlers, Keywords and Meta tags, writing various tags, analyzing the source code and relevance of content on the website. They will then provide recommendations to make the client’s website complaint with search engines.

5) Submitting the client’s website to Search Engines and Directories

The SEO experts will then submit pages of your website along with the sitemap to search engines so that they get indexed properly. This will help the client’s website to get more visibility when searched for, on search engines.

6) Link Building Analysis

SEO experts will help the client’s website to get more inbound links as these links result in driving more traffic to the client’s website.

7) Ongoing Review

The SEO expert will conduct an ongoing review for the client’s website after 2-3 months and see the results in terms of number of pages indexed, number of inbound links to the website, amount of traffic on the website, etc.

In spite of doing a full analysis on the client’s website and delivering the desired results, what clients fail to understand is the criticality of the SEO process. They should realize the fact that their website is an extended arm of the marketing activities of their company. Their website presents the face of the company to a global audience and therefore, one must be extra careful in terms of managing their website.

The client’s only concern with respect to a SEO campaign is the amount of time it takes to deliver results. In spite of performing several functions which enable a better ranking and more visibility for the client’s website, SEO providers find it difficult to convince clients to invest in their time.

In reality, they should sell the idea of a SEO service by convincing clients that they are investing in their own website which helps them to grow their own business.

Choosing a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Firm

2006-11-06T18:42:00.000+05:30

Choosing an SEM company is an important decision: the right choice can lead to tremendous initial growth in your company's online business and create the foundation for a satisfying business relationship that keeps this growth alive over the long-term.

Trust

When selecting an SEM company, you are first and foremost establishing a business relationship, and successful relationships are built on trust. You will be placing your online success in the SEM company's hands. Most of us can tell pretty quickly if someone deserves our trust. Follow your gut instincts, but also consider these questions:

Does the company answer your questions honestly and completely, or did it avoid certain topics and give fuzzy answers to others? The SEM company should have nothing to hide when it comes to describing how they optimize sites, how they manage ad campaigns, their track record, etc.

Does your SEM company have experience in the industry? If you're hiring them to handle search engine optimization on your web site, have someone experienced with creating web sites look underneath the hood of a couple sites the company has optimized, looking for any unusual coding that may be hidden from public view. If you're hiring the SEM company to handle your PPC campaign, have they managed campaigns successfully for clients of your size?

Do they have a list of references you can contact? Hearing the first-hand experiences of past clients is a great way to learn about the company. (Note that some of the company's past clients may have asked not to be included in a reference list, and the company should honor those wishes.)

Does the SEM company pressure you with sales tactics designed to force a decision before you're ready to make one? Building a relationship isn't about closing the deal; it's about doing what's best for you, the client. You should be able to speak with the individuals who will be doing the actual work on your site, not just with a salesperson.

Which Services?

Search engine marketing includes a variety of methods that can increase a web site's visibility in search engines. Before choosing an SEM company, it's imperative to know which one(s) you need.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making a web site search engine friendly. It typically involves making changes to the web site itself that are designed to help the site rank higher in the organic (i.e. - free) search results.

Some search engines offer pay-for-inclusion (PFI) services, which allow you to pay to have various pages/URLs of your site crawled by the search engine spider, often on a regular basis.

There's also pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, which offer you the chance to pay to have your ad appear when searcher type your chosen keywords into the search engine. In these programs, you bid on certain words or phrases and your advertisement appears when a search is made for those words or phrases -- usually near, but not as part of the traditional search results.

These are just a few of the SEM services a company might offer. Some issues to consider:

Do you need SEO or PPC? Both? Something else? Ask the companies you're considering for their recommendation. Ask them to separate the time and costs of each service when they give you a cost proposal for your project so you can make a more informed decision.

If you need PPC, will the company you're hiring do that part of the project themselves? PPC advertising is a specialty that not all SEO companies practice. The ones that don't can often recommend companies to handle that aspect of your project.

If PPC advertising is part of your project, how long will the campaign last? How much will it cost? Which search engines will you use? What types of tools does the company use for managing your bids? Is the company skilled at writing targeted ad copy?

How will the company identify the best keywords and phrases for your optimization project? Whether you need SEO, PPC, or both, identifying the most appropriate keywords and phrases to target will be a key factor in the overall success of your efforts. Make sure you have input into this process since you, ultimately, know your business and industry more than anyone. If you specialize in and want to promote your blue, graphite widgets, don't allow the SEM company to emphasize widgets in general (not enough focus) or red, titanium widgets specifically (wrong focus). The SEM company should be able to provide general statistics indicating how often your preferred keywords and phrases are actually searched for on various search engines.

Know Your Risk Comfort Level

There are many ways to optimize a web site for search engine success. Some methods are more aggressive than others, and many search engines and industry professionals frown on these tactics as being too risky at best, and unethical at worst. Many search engines go so far as to warn the public about these methods, perhaps none so strongly as Google on a page it wrote for business owners :

"Many SEOs provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted. However, a few unethical SEOs who have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results."

As a business owner, you have to determine how much risk you're willing to take on. If you're willing to try risky methods such as cloaking, doorway pages, and keyword stuffing (among others), you should also be aware of the potential consequences (which include being penalized by search engines). Make sure you and your SEM company are in complete agreement over the methods to be used in your optimization project, and have it clearly defined in the contract.

Executing an SEO Plan

If organic search engine optimization is one of your needs, you'll want to have a clear idea of how the company you hire will execute the project. The company should develop a plan based on your needs and budget. As the client, you may not want to know -- and may not understand -- every little detail that the project entails. But there are a number of topics you should discuss with the company to gain a better understanding of the big picture:

Will the company execute the hands-on aspects of the optimization plan, or are they only providing directions for your webmaster? There's no right or wrong answer to this. Some firms are consultants only; others offer consulting and hands-on optimization. If you don't have a webmaster, and expect the company to do the actual optimization work, ask about their experience as programmers and make sure they are as skilled at the hands-on work as they are at consulting.

What changes need to be made to your web site to make it more search engine friendly? In other words, what does the SEO company consider the full scope of work to optimize your web site? The project may or may not include things such as:

changing the layout or design of your site
updating the site architecture -- the menus, navigation, etc.
rewriting and editing content -- the visible words on your web site
improving HTML tags -- the hidden pieces of information in the code of your web site
link building -- finding appropriate web sites and obtaining links from their site to yours (hint: avoid link farms and FFA sites at all costs; hint #2: the SEO company should not require a link from your site to theirs as part of the project)
search engine submission -- letting search engines know about your site (hint: avoid automated tools; hint #2: avoid any company promising to submit your site to hundreds of search engines; hint #3: search engine submission is essentially obsolete)
directory submissions -- letting web directories know about your site (hint: this is often more difficult than it sounds)

How soon will the company begin working on your project, and how long do they expect to take to complete it? It's unrealistic to expect your web site to make the top ten search results within a week after the project ends, so if you're aiming to increase holiday sales make sure you start (and the SEO company can finish) far enough ahead of time to allow the project to succeed. Which leads us right into...

Measuring Success

It's up to you to determine the goals and definition of success for your SEM project. Perhaps it's nothing more than an increase in traffic to your site. Expansion of your mailing list subscriber base? Doubling last year's online sales in the holiday season? During the initial meetings with the companies you're considering, you'll need to articulate your ultimate goals and whether they're short-term, long-term, or both.

It will, however, be the SEM's job to help you calculate success with information and statistics about the project. Things to consider:

Does the company make promises to acquire you as a customer? Building trust involves setting realistic expectations. No SEM company can promise long-term top rankings in the organic search results of any search engine because search engines are constantly changing how they index and rank web sites. (In the short-term, however, PPC advertising might include a guarantee of visibility on the first page of search results if you're bidding/paying enough to be seen there.)

What kind of reports will the SEM company provide to indicate your web site's ongoing ranking in various search engines, or the success of your PPC ad campaign? How often will you get those reports, and can the company help you understand them? Some companies may be able to provide sample reports to give you an idea of what to expect. How will you measure your ROI (return on investment) and what role (if any) will the SEM company provide in this process?

These are some of the issues and concerns any business should address when considering which SEO/SEM company to hire for marketing your business online. You might also spend time using the variety of resources available elsewhere on our web site to learn more about the value of search engine marketing and the industry itself. (But try to stay away from the water cooler -- hopefully now we won't be reading about your company there, unless it's the story of your SEO/SEM success!)

Source: SEMPO

Branding with Search Marketing

2006-11-06T18:33:00.000+05:30

Branding is a major goal for marketers around the world. Large companies have typically allocated substantial funds for branding despite the fact that its effectiveness is long-term and difficult to measure. But much has changed since the commercial web became an advertising medium.

Online advertising started with banner ads that provided accountability through the clicks in the site's web logs. As search engine listings began to drive large volumes of targeted traffic to websites, search engine optimization became a marketing strategy.

While most advertising interrupts consumer behavior, search users are actively seeking information and want to be driven to its source. Search engine results page (SERP) listings are non-intrusive and function as a text ad. Little was it known in the early days that branding took place as users viewed the top listings.

Branding in the SERPs

The first hint of search engine branding surfaced in 2001, when NPD Group conducted a study to examine user interaction on three types of search engine ads: SERP listings, banner ads, and square "tile ads" alongside search listings. Results indicated the SERP listings were read and clicked significantly more often than banners or tile ads. Listings also produced more sales. The study concluded that SERP listings resulted in more brand awareness than any other ads in a search environment.

In 2004, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Nielsen/NetRatings conducted a study on "Internet Search Brand Effectiveness" to explore branding in SERP text ads. The study looked at various branding attributes based on SERP exposure and contextual ad placement. The branding attributes studied were: unaided brand awareness, aided ad awareness, familiarity and brand image associations. Results indicated that SERP branding is stronger than contextual ad branding and is particularly effective when the brand holds the top position in the SERPs.

The Importance of Branding

Your brand is what identifies your business to consumers. It resides in the hearts and minds of your customers and prospects as the sum total of their experiences with and perceptions of your company. Good branding results in loyal customers, and existing customer relationships are the key to profitability. So it's no wonder that branding is a major marketing goal.

SEMPO research on business marketing goals shows that most companies place "increase brand awareness" at the top of their list. Other goals include, "selling products/services online," "generating leads," "increasing traffic," "generating leads for distributors," and "providing information/education."

The Branding Component of Search Marketing

Up until now, the major goal of search engine marketing (SEM) has been to drive targeted traffic to your site for lead generation and online or offline conversions. It's taken a while for marketers to realize that during this process, another valuable advertising goal is achieved -- that of branding.

Some SEM firms don't hype branding because of the focus on driving qualified traffic to produce leads and sales. However, the branding aspect of SEM is important, accountable, and should not be overlooked.

How Search Branding Works

When indexing your site, most search engines will use your website's Title and Description, or the information therein, to create the text link that appears in the SERPs. This link, and the brief description of your site that follows, function as an "ad" when users view your search engine listing.

Every time your listing shows prominently in the SERPs, branding takes place. You can achieve better branding when you ensure that all your ad elements encourage maximum awareness upon click-through to your landing page.

There are two major factors of importance in an SEM branding campaign: your branding message on the results page (Title/Description or Paid Text Ad) and your call to action on the landing page.

Coordinating Critical Ad Elements

Your Title and Description Tags are critical elements in a professional search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. When your website structure and content are properly optimized, these elements will help bring you to prominent positioning in the SERPs.

With paid search ads, a professional SEM firm will research and identify key phrases, write the text ad, develop your bidding strategy, monitor bids, and track and fine-tune changes. Here, too, there's a Title and Description that shows in the SERPs.

Your landing page is an important ad element for both SEO and Paid Search campaigns. Copy and creative should be strategically composed as an extension of your "search ad" on the SERPs, with the landing page focused solely on the desired action. Ideally, these marketing elements should be prepared by SEM pros with some advertising expertise.

Measuring Search Branding

How do you measure the effects of branding in a search engine marketing campaign? A web analytics program such as ClickTracks or WebSideStory can do more than simply report statistics. These systems for compiling data will analyze your web logs to effectively manage your SEM campaign and measure your brand effectiveness. Below are some of the data points that can be used to measure the brand impact of an SEM campaign.

Average Time On Site: The longer your visitors browse your site upon arrival from a search engine, the better chance you have for future conversions.
Page Views Per Visitor: The more pages your prospects visit and read, the greater the odds of communicating your marketing message. This contributes to branding awareness.
Path Views to Registration or Subscription Sign-Ups: This is the same as the visitor giving you permission to form a business relationship. It starts a dialog and allows you to continue building your brand, moving the visitor closer to conversion.
White Paper Downloads: The more interest is shown in your products/services, the more branding takes place, and the user moves closer to conversion.
Navigation Report: This shows where visitors go next, pointing prospects to distributor or retailer sites. When search listings result in a click to a seller site, there is likelihood of purchase and proof of branding.

Maximize Your Branding Efforts

With the hidden value in search listings, it's wise to extend your branding efforts through SEM campaigns. The coordination of SEM and advertising expertise ensures that all critical ad elements work together for both conversions and the elevation of your brand.

In case if you are looking for a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) firm to carry out your branding exercise, contact Position2 Inc.

Source: SEMPO