Search results matching tag 'Search Engine Marketing'

Win a £5k Search Audit with Reform Digital

980070 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:07:00 GMT

Just fill out this survey if you're a UK Advertiser http://www.reformdigital.com/research for the chance of a digital makeover.

Thanks for the heads up from the wonderful Amanda Davie who, I'm sure, will answer a few questions on the findings when the data has been put through the mangle!

Badabing - it's on the up. #badabing

2306192 — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:14:00 GMT

So, it seems that BING is making an impression in the US – comScore reporting as much as a 3% increase in the two weeks since its launch.
It will be interesting to see if this growth is sustained, or rather whether the £100million investment rolls on and on to fuel the hype of the new ‘Decision Engine’. CEO Steve Balmer suggested that MS are prepared to offer up 5-10% of its operating incoming in search over the next 5 years (possibly a staggering £11billion!) and today at Microsoft’s European search summit MS has boldly vowed that they will be the best UK search engine – quite a statement eh!

I took 5 minutes to have a scout around BING; here are some of its nicest features that I’ve noticed.

• Search

Realted search, clear and logical – not too sales driven
Introduction of categories in the linear results - Apparently to combat the huge drop off of click through rates post position 5 that Google experiences, Bing seemingly offers a more enriched list.
Importantly – result quality seems good.

• Image search

Select by size, layout, colour, style and people – and from my test they all seem to work, makes Google’s colour selector look a bit naff!
Viewing options on how many images are on a page, nice smooth switch over of formats

• Related searches

They seem logical and unobtrusive
You can turn them off if they annoy you!

• Video

Roll over snippet functionality – gives you a small preview of the video in question (although this could reduce CTR on query based searches)
Again the plethora of search filters are welcoming and useful i.e best match or most recent

• Shopping

Bit of a fail – shoots you out to Ciao! Which just isn’t as nice? Still it’s a reputable partner, although the introduction of flashing banners, adsense and tags like ‘earn money for reviews’ removes some of BING’s simple allure.

• News

Limited, but hey it’s only in beta – expect more to come in this area

• Maps

Nice link through to Multi-map – still not Google maps is it!

Follow Microsoft’s search summit on twitter hash tag #badabing.

Bing.com From Behind The Bling

980070 — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:29:00 GMT

I’ve always been pretty agnostic on Digitales, but as this is my 300th post, I’m sure Steve and Rich at Media Week will allow me to talk Bing!

Ever since I joined Microsoft back in the summer of 2005, the advertisers and agencies I’ve talked to have loved adCenter and helped it grow in functionality through and open and honest dialogue. They’ve appreciated the diligence and availability our service teams and revelled in the great ROI they’ve gleaned from the platform.

The lingering question has always been around volume. What were we going to do to increase market share and take some of it away from Google?

Share has slipped somewhat since those days and now stands at around 4% in the UK. Not a nice place to be. And to be honest, I personally never had the answer to what was needed to draw people away from what they already know, other than it had to be a significant shift in how we display results, and add more value than what was currently out there.

Enter Bing.com!

Launched last week, the new search experience has been getting some great reviews.

Badged a “decision engine”, the idea is to take the heavy lifting and frustration out of searching the web - all that “back and forthing” trying to narrow down result choices and potentially wasting advertiser clicks at the same time – by categorising results into intuitive buckets which make it easier for users to find and more importantly take the action that lies behind their intent.

I won’t go into all the features here but check out the demo and videos for more insight.

Now we’ve had our knuckles rapped in the past for launching advertising products in the US and seeming to ignore the UK while our American cousins get their house in order. After all, we’re two countries divided – I mean united - by the same language right?

How hard can it be?

Well we’ve indicated we want a product that is locally relevant and has locally produced bells and whistles, and the folks in Redmond have listened. We have now opened a Search Technology Centre in London, and are working hard to put together a compelling offering with a truly British vibe.

What you see today on the UK version of Bing.com is not the final product – it is in Beta and it will get more exciting as our local engineers enrich the global experience with strong local flavour!

What does it mean for advertisers and marketers? Well Rich Sutcliffe asks some pertinent questions in his Media Week commentary this week and he’s right to ask them.

But I truly believe we’re at the proverbial crossroads here – there is so much more we can do to improve the speed and relevancy with which we connect advertisers with consumers.

Software is the answer and we need to innovate and adapt business models and practices in order to capitalize on what is starting to become a brave new world.

Discover Bing and let me know what you think....

Are decision engines the Emperor's new clothes?

1131635 — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:52:00 GMT

It's been a big month for 'decision engines'.

First we had the build-up and launch of Wolfram-Alpha as mentioned a few weeks ago and now we have the launch of Microsoft's own decision engine called 'Bing'. Bing went live last week, a couple of days early. The earlier-than-planned-launch is a strong indication of the effort Microsoft has put behind it. Let's not forget how important Bing is to Microsoft. The majority of Microsoft's recent challenges to Google's search and online advertising dominance have failed to make an impact on their market share. Bing is the successor to Microsoft's Live Search. But what's different? And what exactly are 'decision engines', a term so new that there isn't a Wikipedia entry to define them yet?

Decision Engines are being positioned as the evolution of search. Whereas search engines 'simply' (and I use the word advisedly) return the closest match to a given search term, decision engines move us closer towards the 'semantic web' and artificial intelligence by using contextual information, together with the results of previous user's searches, to provide more accurate and more helpful results. Well that's the theory anyway.

But do either Wolfram Alpha or Bing live up to this?

Wolfram Alpha has hit the 100 million query mark, but getting an answer to your question is still quite hit and miss. It's actually quite difficult to think of a useful query that Wolfram Alpha has an answer for. Many questions still get a "Wolfram Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input".

Bing on the other hand might well be trying to position itself as a 'decision engine' but it's not as revolutionary as its pre-launch billing. It's more of an evolution of search, attempting to improve on Google's offering.

And there are some nice features: the image search allows you to filter images by size, style, layout etc. A neat feature. The video shortcuts allows you to play the video by just rolling over the image thumbnail in the search. But Bing has been criticised for delivering poorer results than Google. For a neat way of comparing Google and Bing, Blackdog have created a split screen site to search both sites at the same time.

Will it be enough to make inroads into Google's market share? Only time will tell. But from first impressions it's just not significantly different or better than Google to shift consumer behaviour.

There is a danger that the term Decision Engine is being used by Microsoft in order to create some new news: as an attempt to be viewed as creating something new rather than just going head-to-head with Google. But that's exactly what Microsoft is doing.

The Wolfram Alpha product may not be quite there yet, but it takes us much more into the area of decision engines and its evolution will be much more interesting and important to watch.

Make good use of 30 mins...

2306192 — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:07:00 GMT

I thought I’d make use of some quiet time in the office today so I finally got to watching a series of videos that Matt Cutts posted on Google's YouTube webmaster channel in Feb 09.

Sometimes it's just too much of an effort to read, either on screen or in print (this blog aside of course:) So, if like me you want a little text escapism and are wanting to catch up with some of Google's latest updates, for example how they plan to give more credence to Brands in the SERPs, then this is a useful resource - and a lot lighter than reading!

This is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMfWPWUh5uU&feature=channel and is the Brand discussion.

Will Google tweet people off?

2306192 — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:50:00 GMT

So we hear last week of Google’s rumoured approach to buy Twitter. People in the office of none Search Engine Marketing breed have asked how they can justify such high expenditure for what is ostensibly a non-commercial social media product.

Well this could be a very close snap shot of the future:

Like it? .....No? we don’t like change do we?!

It’s very real that this could be a snapshot of twitter in 12 months time – a purged profile of Google ads, whether you like it or not!

You would assume that the ads will be contextually linked to keywords that don your recent tweets – take YouTube as an example and how you see, in most cases, contextually relevant ads before, after and accompanying the videos that you view.

This will of course give Search professionals even greater reach (should this happen) and with the advancement in Google’s adserving technology I’d imagine that there’s a lot of search marketers, and brands for that matter, waiting with curiousity as to what this may bring - a reliable short cut for brand success in twitter?

If this does happen (albeit speculation at this satge) then, like a london banker, I may not carry my Google mug in certain corners of the office...

To Rank or Not To Rank? That is the question...

2306192 — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:07:00 GMT

Are ranking reports dead? Are they slipping into measurement obscurity? Do they still have a place in the ‘monthly report’?

I recently had a conversation with a client regarding target setting, I paraphrase but it went along these lines ‘these rankings are great, we should be setting targets for where we want to be in 6 months time’ me ‘mmm well if I’m honest then I’d prefer not to. Rankings are more indicative of actual website performance and the work that we’re doing right now. Yes, ranking improvements will improve website footfall, but we should be optimising against traffic uplift, sales and the monthly revenue that search creates against our overall targets’ client ‘yes, but we still want to be top (1st in Google) for these terms’

Since my first footsteps into search marketing the ‘Rank’ factor has always been synonymous with performance monitoring. This is logical, for it’s the easiest to monitor, the easiest to grasp the concept of and the easiest to view. I can’t even try to count the times that a client has asked those mortal words ‘where are we ranking for...’

Yet, for some funny reason, and against my better judgments, I just can’t resist checking my rankings reports every week (i would do it every day if i could) yes i know that rankings fluctuate daily, yes i know that rankings are a mere conduit for traffic, but despite all this, i just cannot help it! It’s an ego thing isn’t it? That first place ranking is the icing the icing on the cake, the final piece of the puzzle, the last battle won, the medal ceremony – take your 1st place on the podium.

I can only assume that for clients that it’s the same thing too, a form of bragging rights by getting that top spot off your nearest competitor.

Don’t read this wrong, I will always measure the true success of any campaigns by 100% advocating the use of statistical metrics. Every search campaign should, as a MINIMUM, be tracking and constantly improving (where appropriate) sales, registrations, traffic, downloads and ultimately ROI.

Take this hypothetical example to put it in to context:

If i was promoting a clothes website that specialised in clothes for tall people then you would imagine that my ultimate goal would be to rank number one for ‘large clothes’ or ‘tall clothes’

But, what if we found that achieving rankings on that one term would absorb 100% of the search team’s resource, and that it had no guarantee of conversions and ultimately could take months, if not years for you to finally get on to the 1st page of results?

Remember I’m selling clothes for tall people, therefore ‘tall clothes’ or ‘large clothes’ may offer large amounts of traffic yet little offer of reward.

The smart thing to do in this case would be to analyse your web traffic, see what keywords drove both traffic and conversions. Then you can benchmark rankings, form a gap analysis on rankings and look to optimise against these keywords. For example these could be ‘tall trousers for men’ ‘tall ladies clothes’ (a small PPC test on these keyword may also help set targets) if there’s room for improved rankings then you would assume that there’s also room for improved traffic and more sales.

By analysing actual data an securing your key battle ground you’re going to benefit on a far greater scale than chasing ‘dream’ rankings that are frankly going to be a drain on your reserves. Yes, rankings on the ego keywords will, over time, develop, and that will be a great bonus.

However, the first thing that any campaign should do is look to secure the ‘bankers’ the keywords that will drive traffic and ultimately assist you in hitting your targets. Would you rather have 1 amazing ranking and low sales or 10 ok rankings that, by means of traffic and conversions, are setting you up for a nice little bonus?

Statistical benchmarks, growth projections and realistic targets will help ensure that your campaign stays on the right track. But still, we’re all ego maniacs at heart, we all want to be number one and there is no greater thrill for a search analyst that the sight of achieving that adored 1st place ranking – just make sure it’s on the right keywords first.

Google Drive - Why we should be happy to see a cloud for a change.

2306192 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:31:00 GMT

Not even a week ago I posted that I expected much more innovation from Google into 2009...it's not even the end of January and already there has been something to wet our appetite!

Coming to a internet connect near you is the Google Drive (Gdrive)- and this could be the most anticipated release of a Google's product thus far.

Crystal balls aside - The Gdrive has been talked about for a number of years; however 2009 seems to be the year that the cloud gathers pace. When it arrives, Gdrive is like to cause a major paradigm shift in how we use computers. GDrive is basically a cloud-based storage unit that allows you to access your local and online folders via a web interface from any network enabled computer.

It is expected that it will come with further integration of its already growing list of operating systems such as GMail, Docs,Picasca, etc... So the potential for this project truly is huge.

The news has not come without it doubters. Worries regarding what Google can do with you data will always be echoed. Activity last year may ostensibly suggest that Google can be subpoenaed in the US courts to hand over data when needed, and this may limit its use on a true commercial scale.

However I'm sure that the doubters will not turn this particular cloud grey and as a search marketer i'll be interested to see how Google 'monetizes' this venture (they always do!) - perhaps a similar tailored ad-serving system to Gmail where relevant PPC ads are served to contextual keyword cues from the document that you store?

All very interesting...

Mobile Search - Ready for take off?

2306192 — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 09:40:00 GMT

Predictions abound at this time of year, and once again we hear it will be the year of the mobile web – and therefore mobile search - but this time I believe it. Figures released by Nielsen late last year suggest that mobile web use is growing eight times as fast as the conventional PC internet.

Finally, it seems, we have handsets that can deliver a user a true web experience. The success of the iPhone, Android and Storm has definitely fanned the flames of the internet’s mobile success and with Samsung recently stating that it will support the Android phone in 2009 it seems the mobile web experience is literally up and running.

Why’s this important for search? Well the software that these phones run make Google more accessible than ever. The Android is obviously playing for the home team, Google’s iPhone apps are some of the best available and friends tell me that Google’s app for the Storm is also good. So that leaves us with an interesting scenario - seamlessly using the world’s biggest search engine on the world’s fastest growing internet medium...interesting indeed.

However the real test of the mobile web, search in particular, will be the proof that it can drive sales at point of interest. It seems that sceptical opinionators suggest that mobile internet is still in its infancy as a ROI driver, and that makes it still risqué on the planning sheet. Unfortunately that could prevent the investment from advertisers that perhaps it warrants. I look forward to monitoring the impact of mobile on my search campaigns in 2009 and I’m sure others will too.

Search 2009 – 2.0, 3.0, 4.0??

2306192 — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:09:00 GMT

Google took a slight dent in their pride in 2008, tales of misuse of data, sliding share prices and a failed partnership with its adversary Yahoo had its infamous PR machine spinning faster than a hamster’s wheel.

However it hasn’t deterred their innovative engineers and this past year we welcomed the first post-beta release of Google Chrome, Google street view and numerous other experience enhancing products, this for both professional and non-professional use.

And in 2009 I expect more of the same innovation. Early signs show further work on enhancing the personalised experience - the search wiki (web 3.0?) being the most advanced step forward.. It looks like it’s going to be another big year for the advancement of local search, improved geo-location relevancy and the inevitable crack down on malpractice (link buyers beware) .

Google’s bid to deliver the best, most relevant data to each and every user is no secret and improvements in Image search and the introduction of video XML site maps in webmaster tools suggests further developments in universal search that will display results for all formats. I’ve read mutterings of a potential tabbed results page where a user will be able to flick from tab to tab, viewing various results from images, to news, to video and perhaps even blogs. While this may just be paper talk it does offer a huge advancement in user friendliness and something that I for one would like to see.

But while innovation is important – so is getting the basics right and still so many brands fail on this score. We all see so many websites that cost an arm and a leg that are ultimately going to fail to deliver any search traffic. Great content, intelligent web development and some care and attention are a great place to start. Yes, there are many ‘do’s and don’ts’ in the SEO world but simple web practice should underline everything– get an agency to do the hard work.

Knowing your market and keeping on top your PPC campaigns will be more important than ever with trends likely to swing massively throughout the year in line with economic instability - the downturn of property and motor markets and the suprise lifting of embargos on gambling and alcohol terms in Google is testament to this.

The recent popularity of voucher sites, in line with the emergence of the credit crunch, already suggests that the web is turning into ‘Del Boy’s’ dream.In search, the value of proposition over placement will be magnified significantly; touting your wares in a crowded market should not be underestimated with thrifty customers expecting a ‘deal’.

The beauty of search is that it really is so objective, the landscape changes so much that it can be tough to keep up at times. This month’s buzz words could be passé by February, however I’m hoping (slightly expecting) another great year in search, albeit a tough one, with Google top of the class once more.