SearchFuel Banner
Home > Blog > 2008 > October

Top 10 Spooky Signs You Live & Breathe Search

by ~ October 29th, 2008
  1. You Google “Halloween” just for the hell of it, curious as to who comes up.
  2. You are no longer creeped out by spiders because you talk about them all day and are constantly trying to figure out what they are looking for.
  3. You can’t wait to post a photo blog showcasing your company’s office costume party.
  4. You’re looking forward to the discussion over lunch about the “decorations” posted by Google and Yahoo on Friday.
  5. The skeletons in your closet are wearing Google t-shirts, throwing around a Yahoo football and eating cookies sent by MSN.

  6. Your Halloween “loot” (a.k.a. candy) is sorted by size and in order which you will eat them, the king size Snickers bar from Google, the Miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups from Yahoo! and the penny candies from ABC Search.
    Continue reading >>
Filed under: Features | No Comments >>

Self Serve: The Mantra for the Search Industry

by ~ October 28th, 2008

One of the remarkable things about the search industry is that it is largely built on self serving. And in this case I’m not talking about Google’s ability to generate the bulk of its revenues from the tens of thousands of advertisers who go online with a credit card and sign up. I’m talking about the characters who inhabit the noise portion of the search space. People who spend their time writing about search.

My issue isn’t with those that write about the space, but write about it through the lens of their financial agenda. There are certain people in the industry who write about Paid Search because that’s where their expertise is, just as there are blogs and authors who slant towards Organic Search. I have no issue with them. The issue I have is with the constant ink spilled explaining why one approach must be above all others and it is so at the detriment of everything else.

I wrote a column for MediaPost’s Search Insider earlier this month where I started with a pending panel discussion at SMX East on “Do Agencies Get Search?” That reference served as a quick jumping off point for ways that search marketers and agencies alike should think about search. Whether agencies got it or not was never up for debate or even discussion in the column. Yet, all comments about the post on the MediaPost site were about that panel topic and all from the bent of non-agency search marketers extolling why agencies couldn’t get it. Ability to read past the first paragraph when choosing to comment apparently doesn’t factor into some search marketers’ skill sets, either.

Likewise, how many columns from tool vendors must we have about why those who license not build are wrong. And how many paid authors must slam organic as being inefficient when measured by the standards of paid. You think? Paid Search is more measured and receives credit as last click for virtually all online activity; you think it’s going to out perform organic on those grounds? Those of us who write in this space have an obligation to do one of two things: bring a piece of our own expertise to the market which advances enlightenment or education, or provide pro-active forward thinking suggestions that cause the industry to think about its direction and the opportunities ahead.

Otherwise, it’s just pandering to the base and I can get enough of that from CNN and the presidential candidates.

Filed under: Features | 1 Comment >>

Search Engine Marketers Unite: Let’s rethink what we call what we do before it’s too late!

by ~ October 27th, 2008

I am at a cocktail party and Sally asks the inevitable question, “What do you do?”   I cringe because most likely, she will say the two words that I hate most when it comes to descriptions about what I do.  So I say to my imbibing interviewer, I am a Director of Search Engine Marketing.  Sally offers back, “Oh yeah, I know, Search Engine Marketing is made up of two areas, PPC and SEO, isn’t it?”  So my usual dilemma presents itself yet again: Do I launch into an educational rant explaining what I feel are the proper names for the two components of SEM, or drop it?  Slurry Sally seems interested, so I launch.

“Sally, I think you have the gist of what I do in that there are two main areas, but they are called Paid & Organic SEM.  Please let me explain.  On the Paid side of things, we are talking about ‘Paid Search Engine Marketing’ or marketing to the ‘Paid’ or ‘Sponsored’ listings.   When you do a search from, say your laptop or mobile device, using Google, Yahoo, MSN, or even Facebook, the paid or sponsored listings are usually located at the top and to the right of the Organic listings.  A marketer can expect to market to roughly 20-30% of the search engine results when they employ Paid SEM.  When you said PPC, or pay per click, this is a type of ad that is utilized in Paid Search Engine Marketing.  Paid Inclusion is another.”

Sally’s eyes haven’t glazed over yet, so I continue.

Continue reading >>

Filed under: Features | 5 Comments >>

Over Optimizing Relevancy

by ~ October 22nd, 2008

My topic for this post comes from a thought I had during my last blog entry, Google’s Real Time Quality Score Changes Your Query Results.

“One of the reasons search works so well is because it’s the most-efficient advertising medium available. If the search engines keep making changes like this, it is not going to stay that way and then you have to wonder – will search still be as popular or will advertisers give up on it?”

Google’s Quality Score nightmares, while the most significant, haven’t been the only changes the engines have been making in the last few months. We’ve seen Yahoo’s unannounced version of extended broad match appear as if from no where. MSN had a fun time surprising us, and themselves for that matter, with their change in display URL de-duping policy. And good old Ask has upgraded their technology to provide faster and more relevant results.

What’s with all of the unannounced system upgrades guys? Not only did we find out about the Yahoo!, MSN and Ask upgrades after the fact, but why are the big four releasing these changes that are supposed to make things more relevant all at the same time? September and October have been crazy months here in the search world.

Continue reading >>

Filed under: Paid Search | 1 Comment >>

The Search Space: It’s a Zoo Out There!

by ~ October 21st, 2008

My dog is your typical dog.  Actually, I take that back…if you could take the best qualities from every dog in the world and lump them all together, that would be my dog.  She is beautiful, sweet, and she always does exactly what I tell her; most times what I want her to before I even say it.  If you told my dog to click on your ad and go to your website and buy your product, you know what?  She would.  Probably buy two just to make you happy.

If only our beloved searchers were like my dog.  Alas, most of them are much more similar to my cat.  She will also do what I want, provided it’s the one time a year or so that our wants align.  Otherwise, she pretty much laughs in my face.  Take, for example, the only real rule I really try to “enforce” with my cats: stay off the counters and kitchen table.  I’ve tried foil, I’ve tried nasty tasting sprays, I’ve tried yelling and spraying water.  I clearly just haven’t found the right thing to motivate her to do what I want her to do.

If your searchers are like my cat, you have your work cut out for you.  Sure, they might click on an ad, but you bet your tail they’re not going to convert unless THEY want to.  And the goodies had better be there every step of the way to keep them moving in the direction you want them to.
This brings me to my point (finally! you say) – how do we get those naughty cats of the world to do what we want them to do?

Let’s take this opportunity to go back to Search 101.

Continue reading >>

Filed under: Paid Search | 1 Comment >>

CPC Conspiracy Theory – I Want To Believe

by ~ October 17th, 2008

Artist: Chris Madden Now, I am not one to spread vicious rumors (though I do like to hear one every once in a while), but what is up with the search engines’ sporadic and unexplainable fluctuations in CPCs? MSN and Yahoo! seem to be bigger offenders of this than Google, but Google is not innocent of this yet. They just put a great PR spin on it calling it Real Time Quality Score. I am just going to state it — I feel that the search engines are doing these increases because they can.

A very specific example that I have of this is one of my clients saw a 100% increase in their CPC for their brand term in MSN over just one week. We probed MSN to see what the possible reasons could be for this huge increase in one week – their answer was “could be competition.” My first problem with this answer is the could part. Don’t they have a better understanding than could? My second issue with this answer is the competition part. I went online and checked who the competition was, and to my surprise, there was none. I hit the refresh button; again, no competition.

The above is just one example of the increase of CPCs in MSN without a solid explanation. I have seen through another one of my clients our branded CPC has increased from the $1.00 range well into the $3.00 range in a very short period of time, without any obvious changes in the SERP environment.

Continue reading >>

Filed under: Paid Search | 1 Comment >>

From No Limit Poker to Solitaire

by ~ October 14th, 2008

Amidst all the financial gloom of the past few weeks comes the notion that search is better positioned in this recessionary period than other media. While this may be true the future of search revenues thrive on something which may be in short supply soon, competition. At any given time an auction is occurring for search real estate against a given keyword. There are in essence two bidding models in effect. First is that of advertiser vs. engine to qualify for participation in the second auction, that of advertiser v advertiser. Let’s ignore the first auction because that is not soon to dissipate, unless Google truly intends to live up to their recent statements about not controlling market prices.

Continue reading >>

Filed under: Features | 2 Comments >>

To Blog Or Not To Blog? A Corporate Dilemma

by ~ October 9th, 2008

Let’s face it. Blogging is the newest “it” thing for companies to do. You’re not part of the cool kid club if you don’t have one.  But do companies really HAVE to blog? As a consumer, we’ve already got brands rushing at us from every direction asking to be a permanent part of our daily lives (yes, I do work in advertising, I swear).

I believe that if a company really thinks they have something to bring to the blogosphere table, then they should definitely go forward with their plans.  Blogs are a great way to connect and interact with their customers at an individual and personal level which can in turn enhance your brand’s credibility and visibility.

But if you’re going to do it, then do it right. Here are four major questions that companies should ask themselves – and I mean really ask themselves – before starting their blog:

Continue reading >>

Filed under: Social Media | 1 Comment >>

How To Stop Making Visitors Hate Your Website

by ~ October 8th, 2008

Search campaigns are great for driving traffic to a target site; if they were not great at it, pretty much everyone reading this blog would be out of a job. We have also gotten pretty good at tracking people who are coming in from search ads. While their click is greatly appreciated and all together awesome, we love to keep an eye on them until they fill out a form or hit a certain page so we can put one more tally mark in the “Conversion” column in a massive Excel spreadsheet. These conversions are the impetus for our happiness, the boss’s happiness and the clients happiness… and then our families’ happiness because, well, we get to keep our jobs because we rock at getting conversions.

While you hang out in this great little world where everyone is high on conversion counts and the happiness is so palpable in the office that even that emo kid who sits in the corner brooding all day has a smile on his face, no one can even fathom that someone could be disgruntled or dejected. But have you asked if your visitors are happy? Sure, maybe they filled out your forms and clicked your ads, but what you need to think about is whether they did this with a scowl or a smile.

Continue reading >>

Filed under: Features | 4 Comments >>

Why Integration Is Not the Grail, And Causality Is Overrated in Search

by ~ October 6th, 2008

This article was featured in MediaPost’s Search Insider, Friday, October 3, 2008.

Integration.

If you are keeping score at home, it’s the buzzword bingo center square. You know, the free one that everyone claims before the game actually begins. 

Next week, I’m on a panel at SMX East titled “Ad Agencies & Search Marketing.” The panel’s construct is to take three agency-employed leaders and tout the merits of search marketing inside an agency. The teaser line for the session off the SMX Web site is, “Do traditional agencies ‘get’ search?”

This is part of a series of panels that will attempt to validate or dispel the notion that agencies get it. And all will talk about integration. Everyone should agree that a causal relationship exists amongst media, but many will disagree on whether or not the search agency sitting inside the traditional media agency is the right tool for fulfilling the goal of integration.

Continue reading >>

Filed under: Features | No Comments >>