Posts tagged as:

Search Engine Optimization

Search and Open Brands

January 26, 2007

in SEM,SEO

During iCitizen, Resource President Kelly Mooney provided a glimpse into Open Branding –
an innovative concept about how brands can embrace and benefit from the user-generated content model the Web has become.

Beginning to open a brand does not always mean investing in a tactic that feels fringe. It can be a challenge to convince a brand to invest in a viral video where ROI can be hard to determine. Many brands are also still trying to figure out if and how YouTube and Flickr should be part of their marketing strategies. But search is now a proven marketing initiative with easily trackable ROI and it’s a very effective first step to opening a brand.

Search has grown into the first step of every Web experience, becoming the filter by which people manage their Web experiences. According to comScore, Almost 60% of Web users use a search engine every day. Consumers have become accustomed to finding and making brand introductions in search engines.

A recent Nielsen BuzzMetrics study demonstrated that more than 25 percent of search results on Google for the world’s 20 largest brands are links to consumer generated content. Search marketing and open branding go hand-in-hand.

At the end of September 2006, I launched an SEM campaign for MI Homes on the Google and Yahoo networks. The main purpose of this was to increase exposure to their brand in 13 different markets. With an industry average SEM click-through-rate of 1%, the MI Homes campaign experienced double that under the guidance of my search team.

Creating this accessibility benefited their brand, not just from increased conversions, but for the ever important mind share. A 2004 Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Nielsen/NetRatings study found that there is an effective brand lift from SEM campaigns. Consumers responded, as was evident by the high click through rate.

Tagged as: Search, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Statistics, SEM, SEO

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Do You Deserve High Rankings?

August 25, 2006

in SEO

I’ve been very busy with client work, which explains my recent lack of posting.

But I just read an article that is worth pointing to:
Search Insider: Strong Natural Positions Are Not A Birthright

Tagged as: Search, Search Engine Optimization, SEO

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SEO is the Click Fraud Killer

August 9, 2006

in SEM,SEO

Click Fraud is a two-tiered problem. One is technological and the other public relations. One battlefield is the algorithms that ferret out invalid clicks and the other is dueling press releases and media outlets. Today’s news covers the later.

Independent click-fraud firms that sell click-fraud monitoring services are heightening the fear of click fraud. Or so Google says.

But while these firms may have a financial incentive to make the problem seem larger than it is, so to does Google have a financial incentive to make it seem smaller. Half the fight is over perception of the problem and not the problem itself.

I do agree with Google that the problem has been overstated in the media. It’s the hot topic of the moment which can be easily turned on its head, as I did in a previous post. [Post link: Doesn't It Mean Paid Search is 85% Effective?]

But what is most frustrating to me is that while there is much speculation regarding potential solutions for click fraud, I rarely see anyone talk about the most natural  solution—optimization!

SEO is the click fraud killer. A higher natural ranking means that an advertiser can spend
less on pay-per-click and get the same results.

Tagged as: Google, Pay-Per-Click, Search, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEM, SEO

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Drive-Thru Windows and Losing Branded Traffic

June 21, 2006

in SEO

Last week I stopped by my local Wendy’s for a number 6. The drive-thru line was long and the wait seemed to be taking longer than normal. Random cars in front and behind me began pulling out of the line and leaving.

For those working inside Wendy’s it must have seemed like a busy day—endless cars in line and fries flying off the shelf. But what they didn’t realize was exactly how much business they were losing. And this business they were losing was from people who were in line, ready to buy, but drove away because the wait was longer than normal.

Just as I was thinking of how to turn this into an entry about the customers you don’t know you’re losing because of poor rankings, HitWise released some very interesting data.

Fifteen percent of people who search for a brand name end up going to competitor’s site because they rank higher in search engines, Hitwise learned.

Fifteen percent! I’ve seen people applaud six percent conversion rates for campaigns. Now we learn that many brands might be losing 15% of their customer—people who were looking directly for them—because their competitors rank higher in search results.

That is the direct equivalent of a customer driving out of your brand’s drive-thru line. Investigate having a competitive audit done, to see who you may be losing traffic to and what you can do about it.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Tagged as: Marketing, Search, Search Engine Optimization, Search Statistics, SEO

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Hyphens or Underscores in URL? Do What the Engines do.

May 10, 2006

in SEO

Not long ago, in one of my "Searching for Truth" articles, I posted about the difference between and preference for using hyphens or underscores in a URL.

Quick recap: If a company sells Blue Widgets and they want to rank high for searches related to Blue Widgets, one of many techniques to use is to include the keywords in the URL. Which is more effective, an underscore (www.YourSite.com/Blue_Widgets) or a hyphen (www.YourSite.com/Blue-Widgets)? The question revolves around if an engine is more likely to see Blue_Widgets or Blue-Widgets as two distinct words.

I went into this topic in much more detail in this post, where I also stated my opinion.

While I posited my preference for underscores, a Google engineer named Matt Cutts clearly states that hyphens should be used.

Search engines keep their algorithms under lock and key. People like me often work like detectives to figure out the best ways to optimize sites, using all sorts of information as our guide.

One thing I rely on is simple observation of what the engines themselves do. Obviously they are going to optimize their own sites against their own algorithm.

For example: want to see if MSN Search uses meta tags? Just hop over to www.Microsoft.com and view the source code. Since the webmasters of Microsoft went to the trouble of adding meta tags, it’s a safe bet that MSN Search reads them. (How they are factored into the ranking algorithm is another issue.)

So in the case of the hyphen/underscore debate, let’s take a look at what Google does, which is highly revealing.

Matt Cutts says to use hyphens, yet on Google.com the underscore is in use. One needs to look no further than the home page:

The URL for the language tools is: http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
Google’s Advanced Search page: http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

If Google will use an underscore, then the algorithm must be able to determine that “language_tools” is two, distinct words. But then again, Google doesn’t worry about rankings for their own site. But they should follow their own advice, if that advice is truly important.

From my experience, I have seen no difference in results between an underscore and a hyphen. My guess is that it doesn’t really matter from Google’s perspective if you use hyphens or underscores, in the same manner that it rarely matters if you spell the search term correctly anymore. Google easy adjusts for our lazy spellings.

Some may prefer to do what Google says, but I would rather do what Google does. Or is this a case of do what I say, not what I do?

Technorati Tags: , ,

Tagged as: Google, Meta Tags, MSN, Search, Search Engine Optimization, SEO

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Is your Search Marketing a Honda or a Porsche?

March 31, 2006

in SEO

Every few weeks, new statistics on relative market share are released for each of the major engines. To no one’s surprise, Google continues to lead the pack by a fair margin.

What do these market share numbers have to do with your search marketing?

Nothing.

Google’s lead continues to increase, percentage-point-by-percentage point, such that when I talk to people about Search, they typically want to hear only about Google. I take this as my cue to try and educate people that a healthy search strategy should encompass search engines as a whole and not focus solely on a single player, no matter how dominant that player may be.

Obviously you want to spend your marketing budget where you can attract the most eyeballs, but focusing on only the top few engines can be folly.

Think of it in these terms. The Honda Accord is one of the best selling cars in America. Porsche, on the other hand, has a 1% market share. But the people who like Porsches would never consider themselves (or the brand they hold dear) to be irrelevant.

Internet users who frequent Ask.com (or LookSmart, or Lycos, or or or…), likewise, do not consider themselves to be irrelevant. They are trying to do the same thing that die-hard Google users are trying to do–find you!

Tagged as: Google, Marketing, Search, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Statistics, SEO

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