An Advanced PPC Strategy? Hmm…
Posted by on September 27, 2005 at 02:55 PM
Be leery; be very leery of the Paid Search Blockade Strategy (free registration required) proposed by Shimon Sandler on MediaPost’s Search Insider. According to Sandler, the blockade strategy is “an advanced pay-per-click (PPC) strategy of occupying the top three or more spots in search engines, essentially blocking out your competition.‎
He continues to explain the strategy detailing how an advertiser must open three separate accounts (if you want to block out your competition from the top three spots) on Google with three logins and three different URLs, otherwise he claims it will be “obvious to everyone what you’re up to.‎ Finally, he adds that you must set up a different website for each PPC account.
Wow. That’s a lot of hard work for a strategy that will result in Google preventing the very ads you worked so hard to write from appearing on the same query. Google calls it the “Double Serving Policy‎ and states that it is strictly enforced. The policy clearly states, “Google does not permit multiple ads from the same or affiliated company or person to appear on the same results page.‎ This includes trying to trick Google by creating multiple accounts and websites for the same business or company.
Instead of wasting your time and energy trying to create this “blockade,‎ try creating a highly-targeted, relevant PPC campaign. Sandler’s approach is not only unethical, it won’t guarantee success. You still need attention-getting ads, strong click-through rates and landing pages that convert your traffic to customers. Take the time to research and build an ethical PPC campaign. I’m certain your efforts will pay off.
Where the Girls Are
Posted by on September 22, 2005 at 04:39 PM
As search engine marketers ramp up for the holiday season, it's worth revisiting a study, published in January 2005 by the Pew Internet & American Life project on search engine user demographics, perceptions, and behaviors. The study, which surveyed over 2,000 adults, has been blogged about at length - particularly its discussion of whether users are able to tell paid from natural search results (most can't). But the study also offers many tasty bites about the differences between men and women when it comes to search:
- 88% of male internet users use search engines, 79% of females do.
- 27% of women search engine users search at least once a day, compared to 40% of men.
- 40% of women users describe themselves as "very confident" in the searching ability, compared to 54% of the men.
- Equal numbers of men and women say they always find the results they're looking for (about 17%).
These numbers would seem not to bode well for marketers targeting a female audience. But what the Pew study doesn't address are the attitudes of users by gender/by age. It would be interesting to know how user confidence compares between women and men ages 18-34. The Pew study found that frequent search engine users are more likely to be well educated and well heeled. In 2001, the National Center for Education Statistics found that in all 50 states, a majority of the bachelor's degrees were awarded to women. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the wage gap between men and women has narrowed significantly over the past 15 years.
These trends indicate that search engine marketers should keep in mind that the female students and recent grads of today are the breadwinners, business owners, and bloggers of tomorrow.
Search and Ye Shall Find. Maybe.
Posted by on September 19, 2005 at 08:31 AM
Searching for blogs just got easier… At least that’s the reason ostensibly behind Google’s new blog search service.
Us search geeks have been using Technorati to stay up to date on all things blog. But outside our ivory tower, the general public often finds blogs only through word of mouth or through traditional media outlets—or they just don’t find them.
But that’s about to change. Or is it? That’s the central question for marketers to consider. Will Google’s entry into the blog game make blogs more accessible to the general public? If the answer is no, then there’s nothing more to say. If it’s yes, then the conversation is just beginning for marketers.
But first, a little background. Chris Sherman over at Search Engine Watch does a great job explaining what Google’s new blog search is all about:
“While Google web search has allowed you to limit results to popular blog file types such as RSS and XML in web search results for some time, and its news search includes some blogs as sources, Google hasn't had a specialized tool to surface purely blog postings. In fact, while all of the major search engines have been dabbling with blog and feed search, none has done much with blog search until now.‎
He concludes with:
“Now that Google has launched blog search, expect the other major search engines to follow suit fairly quickly. All have been feverishly working on blog search over the past year, and now that Google is first out the gate the others will likely move quickly.‎
The industry has anticipated Google’s move into blog search for a while now. As a search engine optimization and marketing firm, we’ve been asking this question: Can blog search get better results for our clients? In this specific case, asking that question leads us to two larger questions.
One, are blogs an effective means of search marketing?
To find that answer, one needs only look at StraightUpSearch’s last post. Megan’s short answer is that blogging can definitely mean better search positions due to an emphasis on relevant content, simple and static architecture and more (although higher positions are by no means guaranteed).
Two, will Google’s blog search increase traffic to blogs?
Time will tell. But when the most famous name in search throws its hat in the ring (and others are soon to follow), you better be ready to rumble. The new tool is going to put hundreds of thousands of blogs at the fingertips of millions of searchers. If you’re not there, you’re missing an easy and cost-effective method to have your message heard. Our recommendation: Start blogging today.
Blogs Help Those who Help Themselves
Posted by on September 13, 2005 at 05:01 PM
2004 was the Year of the Blog, and in its loquacious aftermath, many companies are scrambling, wondering if they're too late to the party. And who can blame them? The blog has been widely hailed as a powerful PR tool, direct line to the grass roots, vanity plate, and the "New Journalism". But while a blog can be all of these things and more, it's the idea of the blog as an SEO strategy that inspires many companies to dive head first into the blogosphere.
The blog's reputation as an SEO silver bullet is not entirely unfounded. Many blogs enjoy prime positions in the search engine results pages (SERPs). But there's nothing inherent about a blog that enables it to position well - though many blogs share a number of search engine-friendly characteristics:
- Large amounts of frequently updated, indexable content
- Clearly defined, tightly focused topic
- Simple, static architecture that's easy for the search engines to crawl
- Natural magnets for incoming links, both from other blogs and elsewhere
In other words, buying a domain, putting up a few posts chock full of keywords, and calling it a blog does not a successful SEO strategy make. At the end of the day, a blog is just another website, and the same search engine algorithms apply. A good blog can be an important component of a comprehensive search engine marketing campaign, but blogging solely for SERP positions isn't likely to work (and readers can sniff out inauthenticity a mile away.)
So blog because you have something to say, and you want someone to hear it. Blog because it's your first line of defense against critics. Blog because you want to give your loyal customers a sneak peak at what's new. Blog because your company needs a human face.
Write something worth reading, and consider any sweet search engine positions the icing on the cake.
All’s Not Well (Optimized) For E-Retailers
Posted by on September 12, 2005 at 03:47 PM
How well optimized are the top 100 websites of Internet Retailer Magazine’s Top 400 Guide? That’s the central question to Oneupweb’s second annual study, There’s Still Money on the Table: Internet Retailer Study 2005. The answer? Not well optimized at all. In fact, only 17 percent met Oneupweb’s “well-optimized‎ criteria—and that was a stretch.
Frequent StraightUpSearch readers won’t be surprised by this new data. Oneupweb’s look into the Fortune 100’s optimization habits found very similar results. For some reason, corporate America is not buying into SEO / SEM on a large scale. To borrow a phrase from Malcolm Gladwell, it has yet to reach The Tipping Point—when a trend finally spills into conventional wisdom.
As often happens after such studies, we are left with more questions than answers. Here’s one: Ten years after the internet boom, why is it taking so long for e-commerce companies and online marketers to fully utilize SEO / SEM? Here’s another: Do these companies see the proven correlation in search engine positions, traffic and conversions? Yet another: Do these companies know that the most effective online marketing approach is one which incorporates technical optimization, well-optimized content, paid search, and analytics? Finally, online holiday shopping spending is forecasted to reach a record $26 billion… Are online marketers ready?
StraightUpSearch can’t answer these questions for online marketers—each must do that independently. However, we can speculate on what’s keeping them from fully embracing SEO / SEM.
• They don’t yet fully realize the benefits of SEO / SEM.
• There’s no more room in marketing budgets.
• They’re too busy to do SEO / SEM in-house—and don’t know how to go about researching a firm.
• They don’t see the urgency because their competitors have yet to embrace SEO / SEM.
• They don’t think they “sell‎ anything online.
What’s missing from this list? More importantly, how can we overcome these obstacles? If you are an internet retailer, let us know what’s stopping you. Or let us know how you got the job done.
I’d be interested to hear everybody’s opinion on this.
Tell Me Something, Do You Know What it is to Be Optimized?
Posted by tim on September 07, 2005 at 04:37 PM
Trade Shows are always great. It's amazing how much we are able to learn when we talk to the attendees. I'm sure this never really crosses their mind when we have the chance to talk, since so many of them are there for the classes and sessions themselves, but it really is enlightening.
Recently at the SES show in San Jose, it stood out the number of people that told us they'd been optimized already and just needed that "last little bit". Upon further review though, you have to start to wonder what they are being sold as optimization.
A couple of bloated meta tags and a page full of redundant text jammed onto the site by the site designers doesn't quite qualify. I think my favorite was having a site owner point out the hidden text on his site with the, "yeah... my designer thought I should do that. It didn't seem that great to me, but he was all for it".
It really just points to the fact that robust optimization is really a lot more than the name would suggest. Search Optimization is much more about maximizing a Search/User Experience than it is about anything done to the website itself. A few quick afterthoughts to the HTML when your site designer wraps up his work is NOT optimization. It's either a basic part of good site design, or (more often than not) spam.
As always, caveat emptor.
