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The Future Of Search

Friday, November 13th, 2009

The Future Of Search

Every day, it seems, we in the Online Marketing Industry ponder the same question…where is this thing going? What is the future of search? If you’ve been around as many years as I have, this age-old-question never gets tired. In fact, the constant change and the unknowing is likely why many of us got into search in the first place. Those who guessed right over the years (link bulders, content writers, bloggers, reputation managers) have built tremendous businesses for themselves. Others have maintained and grown their SEO companies, one client at a time. Either way, our Industry continues to thrive on the education and understanding of how search works and how can it improve over time.

So, where is this going? Well, if you believe Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, the search engines (if they had their way) would “connect straight to your brain” so they would know exactly what you intended when you searched. Of course, this is a joke, but the point being that the holy grail of search is to give the user one exactly right answer to a query. That is a lofty goal but a goal nonetheless set by the top search engine – so if there is any indication on where this thing may be going – consider this as the proper direction.

When looking at some of the recent advances in search results being made by Bing and Yahoo!, you can see positive strides being made towards making this goal a reality (and really giving the user the exact right result to their query). Yahoo! Search now offers Search History, Related Search, and Search Monkey results in their left hand channel, as well as Yahoo! Travel (a top portal site) information such a hotels, flights, maps, and restaurant guides.

Bing, of course, is the first so-called “decision” engine and had already incorporated these types of feature sets into their SERPS. All these enhancements are meant to provide users with better, more relevant results and a more personalized experienced- the same goal of the future that Eric Schmidt from Google shared above. Interestingly enough, this approach seems to be working. Bing’s share of market increased from 8% to 9.2% last month.

So, what is the future of search? It likely will include more personalization and a better understanding of what you mean when you type (search contextual web). Will it take the form of what we currently see today? Chances are likely that the way we see results will change, as it’s been changing rapidly these past few years. Keep in mind, moble search is coming and coming fast…

Maybe the name signifies a true wake up call but on August 10th, 2009 Google announced it will be launching changes to it’s search engine algorithm with it’s soon-to-launch “Caffeine” update. This update will be geared to compete more effectively with Social Media sites that provide “real-time search”, an important feature already employed at effectively Twitter and currently in-the-works at Facebook. Real-time search will allow searchers to obtain information as it happens, something the major search engines have always been very ineffective at providing. The true goal of the “Caffeine” update is to indexing content faster, something Google already does fairly quickly. According to the Google Webmaster Central Team, this update is “the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions”. Google is still testing the “Caffeine” update but look for it to roll out soon.
On another note, Google is now randomly experimenting with “bread crumbs” in their search engine results pages (SERPS). Bread crumbs, just like on e-commerce sites, provide links that help users know exactly what page they are on and gives them an ability to find their way back home. These are showing up randomly in the SERPS but look for a more aggressive roll out in the near future. This is an exciting feature set that will provide extra value to searchers. Way to go Google on this one!

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Off The Grid – Greetings From Hawaii

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Off The Grid – Greetings From Hawaii

Every once in a great while, I get a chance to go “off the grid” (also known as a “vacation”) for a short period of time. This year, I am in Hawaii for a friend’s wedding. It is during these not-often-enough breaks from the real world that I get a chance to reflect on the rapidity of change in our Industry and, more importantly, to see how many days I can go without using my laptop/cell phone. As far as locations go, there is no better place on earth than Hawaii to disconnect from reality. Being on “Hawaii time” means never having to be hurried, hassled, or stressed. This, of course, completely goes against my life in San Diego where every minute of every day is spent working on client campaigns or chasing down new business ideas and opportunities. Even my spare time is used to read up marketing books, blogs, and publications to stay current in this ever-changing Industry/profession I’ve chosen. In Hawaii, however, time stands still. My only concern here, it seems, is when to go to the store and get some more POG juice. It is this sharp contrast in realities that led me to write this blog. Just to be clear though… I, of course, couldn’t go a single day here without plugging into the Internet. However, the difference is that the way I manage my time out here is extremely unusual. I can now reorganize and re-categorize hundreds of daily messages into new priorities (with only a handful of them truly being what I would call “important”). I can work periodically instead of at the manic pace I maintain back home. Perhaps it is because I know that when I wake up here in Hawaii, people on the East Coast are just about to finish their day. And perhaps that fact is what causes me to work much more efficiently and in much less time out here? Or maybe the sun is starting to affect my thinking? Whatever it is, I hope to bring this new notion of time back to the mainland with me.

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Bing On The Rise

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Bing On The Rise

Guess what the fastest growing search engine is? That’s right…Bing.com. While Google still owns a gigantic market share (65%), Bing has been steadily climbing the past 5-6 months and now accounts for 10.7% of all searches. In August, the Microsoft-backed engine Bing rose 22.1% making it the fastest growing search engine. Their growth comes mainly at Yahoo’s expense, which fell to 4.2% it’s lowest mark ever. What’s worse, is that the much anticipated Micro-Hoo merger (Yahoo! and Microsoft) is likely to face “fierce U.S. Department of Justice scrutiny” according to the November, 2009 edition of Website Magazine.

So, why is Bing rising so quickly? Below I’ve listed a few thoughts:

• Advertising – Give credit where credit is due. Bing’s advertising has been nothing short of brilliant. Positioning themselves as the world’s first “decision-engine”, Bing has been able to differentiate themselves from the other engine’s by offering something unique. It also doesn’t hurt that Bing’s ad campaign has had the financial backing of Microsoft. As such, Bing ads have had significant frequency and reach in both traditional and interactive media.
• Innovation – Let’s face it, search has been in need of a makeover since 2006. And While Google has slowly introduced enhancements to SERP’s (search engine result pages) such as video, local, predictive text, and shopping nothing much has changed for years. Bing, on the other hand, has been innovating since its launch. Take a look at their visual search where users can scroll through images arranged into rows and hover over images to produce a bubble containing more information about the product and you’ll quickly get why Bing is gaining fast acceptance and notoriety.
• It’s Not Google – For years, many have tried to knock off Google… all have failed. Still, anti-Google sentiment persists and Bing offers a real alternative for people that have grown dissatisfied or were concerned about giving one search engine the entire market. Don’t get me wrong, anti-Google sentiment is small but likely still a factor.

Will Bing ever topple Google’s dominance? Not likely. Still Bing’s meteoric rise has livened up an industry that had simply accepted things as they were (and as they have been for the past 5 years). No matter what, however, Bing has done the unthinkable and has shaken up the search market and have made things a lot more interesting.

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A 12 Step Approach to Search Engine Optimization

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

We get a lot of requests from clients who want to know all the right steps for proper search engine optimization. While there is a ton of detail that go into each of these sections and often it takes experience and education to make a positive impact here, based on popular request we have simplified the SEO process accordingly. Below, please find and review SD Interactive’s 12 step approach to search engine optimization:

Have a clear keyword strategy – What are the keywords you are optimizing for? This, above all else, will determine your SEO success. Choose your keywords carefully (traffic potential and competitiveness) and you are on your way. Once you have your keywords, get a list together so you can track and follow your progress. Also, good to know for linking priorities.
Meta tag optimization – are your tags completely optimized? There are preferred limits set by the engines. Google, for example, will display up to 66 characters of a title tag, cropping at times to complete certain words. Do you have too many characters? Too many keywords in your title? Do you use keywords in your descriptions?
Content optimization – is your content optimized? Are your keywords in your content? Do you cross-link? Do you use anchor text in your cross links? Are you images optimized? Do you have your keywords in your image name and alt text? Are your URL’s optimized? Are your keywords in your URL string? Do you have videos? Are they optimized? Do you have your keywords embedded into the video tags? Do you have a press release/media section? Is it optimized? Do you have a blog? Is it optimized?
XML Sitemap, robots.txt files – Do you have these in place? If so, are they optimized and current?
Site/Code optimization – Good code is a huge factor for ranking your site. How good is your code?
X-Factors – How fast does your site load? How fast do your pictures load? Are your images compressed for quicker loading? FYI Slow load times alone can be an entire reason for not ranking better. Domain age – how long has your site been on the web? Also a huge factor in ranking. Legacy sites normally do better. How long is your commitment to your domain? If less than a year, not a good sign. Longer is better since legitimate businesses commit to the long term not the short term.
Off-page optimization – Once your site is launched, you must engage in three things link building 9) content development 10) social media marketing. More info listed below.
Link building – The most important part of off-page SEO is to obtain high quality, one way links to your website from relevant websites. There are a number of ways to get links but quality has now surpassed quantity – so look to obtain links from highly relevant, high Google PageRank sites. Over all other forms of link building, these produce the best results.
Content development – Adding fresh content to your site is a win for your customers and for your rankings. Make sure you have a content development strategy and constantly add new pages of content to your site. Can be done via blog, static HTML pages, press releases, new home page stories, RSS feeds, etc but the content needs to be unique and not duplicated anywhere else on the site.
Social media marketing – extremely important these days to “extend” your brand outside of your own web presence and social media allows you to do just that. For obtaining loyalty from existing customers, Social media does wonders. For SEO, however, the most important element to a Social Media Strategy is to get people to talk about you (and link about you).
SEO reporting & analytics – the most important thing you can do is to track your results and their impact on your bottom line. Tying in an SEO report with your analytics is therefore critical these days. What good is it to rank #1 for a keyword that does not produce results. Instead, better to focus on words with better returns. There are many tool and analytic programs that can handle vast amounts of data to help you make better decisions with your marketing spends.
Review and readjust – If you words aren’t working, make changes. You are never stuck with your original keyword decisions and can change them when necessary.

While admittedly simplified, following this 12 step approach to SEO should hopefully always point your SEO campaign in the right direction.

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Glossary Of Online Marketing Terms

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Below are a list of commonly used terms in our Industry for your reference:

A.C.R. – Acquisition, Conversion and Retention is used to describe our three step process for success on the web. First you must acquire qualified and targeted traffic to your website. Next, you focus on improving your conversion rate via landing page testing and optimization (i.e. conversion optimization). Finally, you retain your customers with highly targeted and timely messages to increase loyalty.
Advertising network – A service where ads are bought centrally through one company and displayed on multiple websites in their network that contract with that company for a share of revenue generated by placing ads on their site.
AdWords – Google advertising console, aka pay per click management service.
Algorithm – The technology that a search engine uses to deliver relevant search results to a query.
Anchor Text – The clickable text part of a hyperlink. The text usually gives visitors or search engines important information on what the page being linked to is all about. This increasingly is becoming the most important part of an effective link building program.
Big Three – Often used when speaking generally about the top three search engines – Google, Yahoo! and MSN (Bing).
Click Through Rate – The rate (expressed in a percentage) on which users click on an ad. This is calculated by dividing the total number of impressions. CTR is an important metric for Internet Marketers to measure the performance on an ad campaign.
Content Network - A group of websites that agree to show ads on their sites, served by an ad network in exhange for a share of the revenue generated by those ads. Examples include Google AdSense or the Yahoo! Publisher Network.
Conversion Optimization – The process of improving your website experience in order to increase specific actions (sales, downloads, email sign ups, etc).
Cost Per Action (CPA) – A form of advertising where payment is dependent on an action that a user performs as a result of an advert.
Cost Per Click (CPC) – Also known as “(PPC) Pay Per Click”. CPC is a form of advertising where an advertiser pays a set price for every click they get one of their ads that results in a visitor to their website.
Cost Per Thousand (CPM) – An ad model that charges advertisers every time an ad is shown to a user, whether the user clicks the ad or not. The fee is based on every 1,000 ad impressions. M is the roman numeral for 1000. Most displays ads such as banner ads are sold by CPM.
Geo-Targeting – Delivery of ads specific to the geographical location of the searcher. Geo targeting allows the advertiser to specify where ads will or will not be shown, enabling more localized and personalized results.
Inbound Link – A hyperlink pointing to your website from someone other than you. Inbound links are an important element that most search engines algorithms use to measure the popularity or relevance of a web page.
Keyword – A word or phrase entered into a search engine in an attempt to get the search engine to return a relevant result.
Meta Tags – Info placed into the header of an HTML web page, providing information that is not visible to browsers. Meta tags can be used to help properly index a page. Common meta tags include title tags, description tags, and keyword tags.
Pay Per Click (PPC) – See Cost Per Click (CPC) above.
Personalized Search – As the engines begin to collect information about your specific searching habits, they can show you different SERP’s based on your previous searching habits and behaviors
Quality Score – A score that is assigned by search engines that is calculated by measuring an ad’s click-through-rate, the relevancy of the landing page, and the consideration of the other factors used to determine the quality of a site. Usually speaking, the higher the quality score, the higher the average position on the engines and the lower the cost per click. All of the major search engines use some type of quality score in their search ad algorithms.
Return On Investment (ROI) – The amount of money an advertiser earns from their ads compared to the amount of money the advertiser spends on their ads.
Search Advertising – Also called paid search. Most search ads are sold by a PPC model, where the advertisers pays only when the user clicks on the ad or text link.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – The process of building and marketing a site with the goal of improving its position in the search engine results. SEM includes both search engine optimization (SEO) and search advertising, or paid search.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – The process of improving a web page’s rankings by making it highly relevant for specific keywords. SEO takes the form of both on-page optimization (improving the actual website) and off-page optimization (popularity outside of their own web pages).
Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s) – The results searchers see after they’ve entered a query in a search box.
Semantic Search – A process wherein the search engines know what you intended when you search based on your previous searching behaviors, interests and preferences. I.e. Jaguar the animal versus jaguar the car.
Social Media - A category of websites based on user participation and user-generated content. These are sites usually centered around user interaction.
Spider -A search engine spider is a program that crawls the web visiting web pages to search out information to add or update a search engines index of pages.
Universal Search – Also known as blended search, universal search pulls in elements of different databases into a SERP such as videos, images, news, and local (map) results. The big three recently integrated universal search into the majority of their SERP’s, as it is something generally preferred by searchers.
Web 2.0 – Refers to the second generation of Internet-based websites and services such as wiki’s, networking sites, and communication tools. This is when the web went from brochure websites to sites that let people collaborate and share information online.
Web 3.0 – The next phase of websites in production that will focus more on personalization and semantic-based searching.

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Profit Optimization is the Future!

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Over the past ten years, I’ve been struggling to find a term that truly defines what it is we can do for our clients. We’ve tried terms such as ACR (aka acquisition, conversion, retention) but that described our process to online marketing more than it did the benefits. We also tried going after specific optimization terms (search engine optimization, ppc campaign optimization, conversion optimization, etc) but that approach always left us too niche and “type-cast” with our clients when we could do so much more for them beyond these single services. Now more and more, however, I have been speaking about “profit optimization” and have come to realize that this not only accurately describes what we can do for our clients but it is the future of our Industry.

So what exactly is profit optimization? Profit optimization, simply put, is where you boost your return on investment by coordinating your search data with your conversion/sales data . In other words, not all conversions are created equal. Some conversions will actually cost you money while others will generate healthy returns. Yet, all this time, we’ve been allocating equal priority to every conversion. With profit optimization, however, we can start making better choices about our marketing thresholds and spends.

So how do you start profit optimizing? Here are some tips:

Establish a way to integrate search data with conversion data so you know which keyword drove the sale. Some simple ways to do this involve custom tags, unique phone number tracking, and dynamically generated landing pages. A more advanced way of doing this is through automatic data sync’s via API’s.
Improve your reporting so that you know which conversion are of high value and which ones are of lesser quality. This is an extra step but the most crucuial. For example, a high value sale may have cost three times as much to acquire but the ROI is much better. The only way to know this is with this extra data point.
Optimize your campaigns -Now that you have these critical technologies and reporting pieces in place, you can now make better decisions optimizing your SEO, PPC, and Online Advertising campaigns, your conversion optimization campaigns, and your retention campaigns. Once you know the high value targets, you can aggressively go after them, while minimizing the spends on the lower value ones.

While we are excited about all of the changes happening in the online space, we are most excited about profit optimization. Here, we finally get to the root of what online marketing is all about – the bottom line – and now we have the tactics and the technologies to make this a reality for all clients.

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A World Without Keywords?

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Imagine a world where keywords are not used for searching. Instead, in this world, the major search engines know exactly who you are and deliver content to you based on your previous browsing behavior and indicated interests and preferences. As crazy as it sounds, this future may not seem as far fetched or as far away as it sounds. At this month’s Search Engine Strategies, the experts in fact discussed that improvements are currently being tested that will deliver better search results, more highly targeted advertising, and an overall enhanced user-experience without the necessary dependence on keyword searching. So, how exactly will the engines know what to deliver to you? To look at this another way, isn’t this already what happens in Facebook to some extent? You get content (in this case adverts and fan page suggestions) delivered to you based on your indicated preferences and interests (things you said you like). The search engines may not be far off from that type of form and function.

So, what does this possible future mean to the website owner/search engine marketer? Especially those of us that have been so dependent on keywords since the dawn of the Internet? Below are some tips for preparing for this possible new world:

Design your website for your customer – make it easy to navigate and user-friendly and try to keep your users on the site as long as possible. In the future, Google will likely place more value on on-site user experiences.
Build your brand – branding and positioning will also grow in importance for Google.
Hire Experience – Hire a search engine optimizer that is looking at all your data and is thinking about the future of SEO (i.e. predictive technology).
Hire Experience II – Old School SEO tactics are now a commodity and too many people claim to have expertise in this field now. BUT Google is always looking for new ways to determine relevancy, and most SEO’s do not take the time to keep up – so make sure you choose an expert who can advise you on the latest SEO trends.
Mine Your Data – Begin by looking at your own website data from Google Analytics, Google Trends, Google Insight to get a sense of existing user patterns. Learn a little about how your users are using your site right now.
Think profit optimization over search engine optimization – If you build a site and a brand that delivers a good product or service, you will not be left out of the mix. If you instead focus on tactics and strategies that are too narrow -minded (give me a top ranking), you may completely miss the boat.

It’s hard for all of us to imagine a world without keywords. For those using search engines for some time now, we’ve grown accustomed to getting to what we want via keyword searching. The change would inevitably shake up the Industry but if the end game is really a better experience for searchers and for advertisers, this change will ultimately be a positive one.

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The Return of Display Advertising???

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

Over the past decade, the “display ad” has become an after-thought for the savvy Internet marketer. Click through rates are at an all-time low (less than .1%) and there are far too many sites/places to advertise. With budgets becoming extremely limited, the smart choice has been to put your money in search where marketers have known exactly what outcome they could expect from their investments. Before we bury display advertising, however, there is now strong data that supports using display in conjunction with your search campaigns. Let’s look at some of the facts presented by Rajas Moonka, Group Business Product Manager, Google Inc. at last week’s SES Conference in San Jose.

Display Drives More Search – After seeing display ads, nearly as many users search (27%) as those who click on display ads (31%).
Display Drives More Traffic – After seeing display ads, website traffic to advertisers websites increased 268%.
Display Drives Better Conversion - Using display ads, a major financial services firm saw a +38% conversion lift while a major airline saw a +34% online revenue lift.
Display Drives More Offline Sales – Using display ads, a major food manufacturer saw a lift in offline sales of +52%.

The numbers clearly indicate that we’ve perhaps been too hard on display advertising over the past few years and we should instead reconsider using them in our marketing mixes. When looking at this from another perspective, consider the fact that people’s media habits are changing. We are now consuming less traditional media (goodbye newspapers, radio, tv) and spending a lot more time online (hello Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Google, Flickr). As such, doesn’t it make sense then to refocus your budgets and advertise where your target customers are now going? Of course, search is still an integral part of the mix. A customer often needs to see your brand in many places and from many different types of media (video, banner, social media) in order to put you in their consideration set when they are ready to buy. But give display advertising the “assist”and the credit it deserves in helping you win conversions from search.

The “big three” search engines get it. Yahoo! in particular has been leading the pack offering a search re-targeting service. This service uses search query data to re-target display ads through sites in the Yahoo! network. Google also is making great strides for potential display advertisers helping them build and create display ads easily with their Google Display Ad Builder. Because of search re-targeting’s upside, additional solutions are out there. According to Mark Simon from Online Strategies, “you should familiarize yourself with solutions from companies like Advertising.com and Audience Science” if you are interested in getting into this space.

Display advertising is the oldest form of advertising on the web and perhaps we all may be been just a little too quick to rule it dead???!!!

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Thoughts on Day #3 at SES San Jose 2009

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Today marked the last and final day of SES San Jose 2009. Again, the conference seemed to have less people than the day before (which itself also seemed to have less people than the day before that) but putting all that aside… today was a good day. From the amazing opening keynote speaker, Charlene Li, to the finals sessions, today was a day of learning, networking, and introspection. Mostly discussed topic this week…”where exactly is this search industry headed”?

Below are some observations about the last day of the conference:

Even less people but the keynote was packed with marketers waiting to hear Charlene Li speak.
Charlene Li gave an impressive speech on the future of search including the declaration that you will soon be taking social with yo (i.e. social in the air).
She also mentioned that the future of search will be by “people” not by “keywords”
After Charlene, the day was packed with great and (mostly) full sessions.
Blogs, news feeds are all powering and serving SEO campaigns well.
Display, content, and search all used at the same time give your campaigns a huge life.
Don’t necessarily give your search (last click) all of the credit! Display ads, emails, etc. can often give an “assist”. p.s. Yahoo! is now tracking search assists.
Hours spent online is going up~ but search only takes up a small amount of the time what people do online.
Search is becoming the new display operation system – and improving the ways that display can get into the mix.
This year was less about the war between Bing, Yahoo!, and Google and instead was more focused on ROI for our clients.
Lunch? C’mon guys.. Three straight days of the same food? Really?

In summary, there were a lot of great speakers and a lot of great people here at this year’s SES San Jose. Next year, SES will move to San Francisco which should be a great change of venue for this conference. Maybe, just then, we will see an attendance number that more closely matches the quality of the event.

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Thoughts on Day #2 at SES San Jose 2009

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Today, On Day #2 of SES San Jose 2009, the conference finally seemed to get down to business. That is, after all the attendees and exhibitors stumbled in late (thanks to our friends at Webmaster Radio and last night’s Search Bash). Today the tracks started at 9:00am and continued all the way through to 5:00pm. With an hour lunch for networking, followed by an hour keynote presentation given by Nicholas Fox, Director of AdWords, the day was filled with many “things to do”. In retrospect, today was the day we all got serious about the conference. Even the exhibitors I asked all seemed to have had a much better day than the day before.

Here are some more observations about day #2:

After a very slow start, people started showing up and participating in the activities of the day.
Less people seemed to be here today, than yesterday, but most of the tracks were “mainly” filled.
Paid search, organic search, and local search still dominate our topics of interest but many in the Industry pondering where are we going to next?
Conversion optimization via landing page testing finally becoming an integral part of an SEM’s playbook.
Site structure, coding, and c0ntent still making the largest on-page impact on SEO campaigns
Link building, content writing, social media still making the largest off-page impact on SEO campaigns
The focus is finally on our customers and the next phase of search is being built to provide better targeted and relevant ads.
Facebook and Twitter are the only two Social Networking sites being talked about (haven’t heard about MySpace once, in fact)
The lunch set up was great for networking opportunities but sadly we were unable to go back for seconds today.

Tomorrow, is the final day of the conference. And while I am looking forward to going back and teaching my staff/implementing new strategies for my clients, I always wish these conference would be a day or two longer. This event, unlike others I attend, has a very positive vibe – one where all of the marketers talk, learn, and share with each other. Competitors are not competitors here just attendees out here to learn for the benefit of their businesses and their clients. Long live search, long live SES!

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