Posted by Daniel Peden on March 12th, 2008
Paid Search
Yahoo! has issued some advice to search marketers ahead of the forthcoming change to the minimum bid system.
Over the next few weeks, sponsored search minimum bids are no longer fixed at $10 (£5) but will follow an auction model, through which a variable minimum bid is calculated fro some keywords.
Yahoo!’s Jeff Hecox has offered five tips for marketers on adjusting to this change as it is introduced.
Companies are advised to learn which keywords work best for their business by comparing click-through rates, click volume and performance metrics.
Marketers should also invest more of their budget in well-performing keywords and to review bids in light of keywords’ true value, while grouping keywords together to improve their quality scores was named as a savvy tactic.
Finally, careful budgeting and ensuring bids meet ad budgets and acquisition targets should ensure campaign management success, the blog post states.
A new Hitwise blog post observes that users who search for terms containing the word ‘laptops’ may be more determined to purchase than those who search with terms featuring the word ‘laptop’.
Posted by Alex Postance on March 11th, 2008
Social Media
Bloggers are among marketers’ most highly-prized customers, a new report asserts.
According to digital world analyst comScore, web users who are heavily involved with the blogosphere influence online sales.
Jack Flanagan, executive vice-president of comScore, explained that advertisers are increasingly keen to target heavy bloggers – who account for 84 per cent of the internet audience.
"This highly informed, tech savvy and entertainment-oriented consumer segment is consistent with the profile of an ‘influencer’, which is of course a particularly attractive audience to reach," he said.
Research from the company suggests that bloggers are heavier consumers of entertainment and news web content than the average internet users.
Sites including PerezHilton.com, Digg.com and HuffingtonPost.com all registered particularly highly on bloggers’ list of visited sites compared with the average member of the US cyber audience.
The study is published as research from Burst Media indicates that the number of sites visited in an average week by users has risen in the past year.
Posted by Daniel Peden on March 11th, 2008
Natural search
Businesses without a web presence are losing out as the internet cements its position as a fundamental platform for purchase decisions, one industry representative claims.
Technology Means Business is the industry standard accreditation for providers of integrated business and information and communications technology assistance to small and medium-sized businesses.
Its head of operations, Dr Adam Le Gresley, has commented this week that firms who fail to embrace search marketing may find themselves left behind.
"Surveys have shown that a large number of people, when trying to locate a particular product or a specific business, will start off using a search engine," he said.
About 97 per cent of the British population have used websites to make a purchase in the past, a new investigation by the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) has discovered.
The corresponding figure is 85 per cent for the world’s overall population, the IMRG study asserted.
Posted by Gavin Smith on March 11th, 2008
Paid Search
Web promotional strategies combining natural and paid search achieve the best results, according to one industry company.
Michigan firm Oneupweb told MediaPost that integration is the next big trend that is going to sweep the marketing world as companies acknowledge the benefits of a blended strategy.
Tim Kauffold, director of business development with the company, explained that cost savings are possible by combining paid search with search engine optimisation strategies.
The advantage of paid search is the ease with which results can be measured and modified, he said.
"Ads are created faster and more inexpensively, and can respond to changing market conditions more quickly," remarks Mr Kauffold.
Meanwhile, SEO is a viable low-cost alternative that can minimise overall campaign budgets and allow firms to enter new brand categories and markets.
In related news, Dr Adam Le Gresley, head of operations with Technology Means Business, has said that no organisation can afford to not have a web presence.
Posted by Daniel Peden on March 10th, 2008
Paid Search
A number of modifications have been applied to Yahoo!’s Add Keywords tool to ease the process of developing a paid search campaign.
In a new post on the Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog by Roger Park, marketing communications manager with the company, highlights three new modifications of the tool and how they can make life easier for advertisers.
Mr Park points out: "In your search marketing campaign, relevant keywords help drive traffic, but generating the right keywords can be a labor-intensive process."
The Choose From component gives campaign managers a list of keywords related to their existing ad groups from which they can select their desired terms and phrases.
Research Keywords invites marketers to add terms to either a box on the left, which generates keyword suggestions, or the grey input box on the right.
Add Keywords is a third modification giving users access to a dialogue box into which they can enter up to 500 keywords with one click.
Meanwhile, the importance of careful budgeting was highlighted by Kastle Waserman on the same blog last week.
Posted by Mike Gomez on March 10th, 2008
Natural search
Google has announced that a new factor is to be incorporated into Quality Score, the search giant’s system of determining the relevance of keywords.
Writing on the Inside Adwords blog, the company’s Vivian remarks that the process will now include landing page load time – how long it takes a page to load after the user clicks on an ad.
The motivation for the new feature is Google’s acknowledgment that it is in the consumer’s interest to visit pages that load quickly, with abandonment rates higher – and conversions lower – for slowly-loading pages.
Set to take place over the next few weeks, the new feature’s introduction will begin with the addition of load time evaluations to the Keyword Analysis page, following which sites have one month to make adjustments.
Following this period, the load time factor is to be incorporated into keywords’ Quality Scores.
Google’s Matt Cutts last week told Wired magazine that search engine optimisation, if used responsibly, was a good thing for the internet.
Posted by Malcolm Slade on March 10th, 2008
Natural search
Google is no longer allowed to feature images of military installations after the Pentagon deemed its Street View feature a security threat.
The authorities clamped down on the search giant after detailed photographs of Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, appeared on the web.
Gary Ross, a spokesperson for US Northern Command, said "We don’t have any issues regarding Google and its products, but the Street View provides clear imagery of control points, barriers, headquarters and security facilities that pose a risk to our force-protection efforts."
Google representative Larry Yu said that it is against the company’s policy to request access to military bases for use in Street View.
The request for access to Fort Sam Houston – and subsequent permit to take photos from authorities – was reportedly a mistake.
According to comScore, Google was the top web property in January in the UK, receiving 29,633 unique visitors.
Posted by Alex Postance on March 7th, 2008
Natural search
If carried out responsibly, search engine optimisation is a positive thing for the internet, according to the head of Google’s quality team.
Speaking to Wired magazine, Matt Cutts said that SEO is a lot like tweaking a CV if done well.
"SEO is sort of like tweaking your resume . . . It’s helpful if you just think about which words people would use to search for your content," the representative said, adding that this can be a "great thing" if approached professionally.
According to Mr Cutts, anyone building a new website should prioritise good quality content as one of the best initial online strategies to get attention.
Honing snippets, changing meta-description tags and modifying text in light of user search habits were also recommended by the expert.
The Google quality head has earned the industry nickname "porn cookie guy" for offering his wife’s cookies to anyone whose search results featured unwanted pornography.
He regularly updates a personal blog called Gadgets, Google and SEO.
Posted by Alex Postance on March 7th, 2008
Natural search
Claims that Ask.com is to give up its search service to become a female-geared information resource have been rejected by the firm.
Reports this week have suggested that the site – formerly known as Ask Jeeves – is to move away from the Google-monopolised world of search.
Site representative Nicholas Graham said that the company is intending to hone its demographic targeting, but will not abandon search entirely.
"We recognise that we can’t be all things to all people, so we’re focusing on our core group of users. We want to build up the kinds of answers those users are looking for, while at the same time remain a strong search site," Mr Graham said.
He explained that a large part of the site’s core audience is women, who access its services for health, reference and entertainment information.
Founded in California in 1996, Ask.com emerged from its PG Wodehouse-inspired initial incarnation a decade later.
Posted by Mike Gomez on March 6th, 2008
Paid Search
Paid search marketers have been advised by Yahoo! to remember the importance of careful budget management.
Writing on the Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog, Kastle Waserma, communications manager for the firm’s customer solutions department, claimed that money is a crucial aspect of mounting a new campaign.
The Yahoo! representative noted that the excitement of planning a new paid search campaign can often obscure budgetary constraints, meaning that marketers could potentially be met with an unpleasant surprise when they realise their campaign’s effect is being curbed by money issues.
According to the communications manager, a paid search budget should be considered as a "money pie".
"To make room for the new campaign, you might have to consider reducing the spend from other campaigns, so that all of your ’slices’ add up to the total account budget," the blog post asserted.
Vish Makhijani, senior vice-president and general manager of Yahoo! Search, recently published a blog post urging marketers to take advantage of the company’s open platform to enrich the information displayed on their company’s search results.
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