Posts Tagged ‘trends’

How To Optimize In Face of Bing, Yahoo! Merger

Monday, March 1st, 2010

The Bing/Yahoo! “search” merger is on its way to becoming a reality. This deal has been talked about forever it seems but now it appears that the likelihood of this occurring is close at hand, now that this deal obtained regulatory approval last week. There are still some hurdles to climb but for all intents and purposes, the Bing Powered Yahoo! Search will be the next new thing in search engine marketing. This merger opens up many new questions, in particular in regards to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  Will this be easier to do now that we’ll have two major engines instead of three? The answer, of course, remains to be seen but we do know that in preparation of this upcoming change, we suggest the following tactics:

  1. Optimize for Bing now – if you haven’t spent much time optimizing for Bing, now is the time to do so. Set up your Bing Webmaster account and get indexed.
  2. Add original, unique content to your site – If your site does not have it, time to start writing it.
  3. Use well-architected code in your webpages (including images and Sitemaps) so that users’ web browsers and search engine crawlers can read the content you want indexed)
  4. Get to know Bing’s Guidelines and Standards for Web Optimization.
  5. Read all you can on Optimization via blogs, articles, and news alerts.

Optimizing for Bing isn’t necessarily different than optimizing for any of the other engines who also prefer good content, good links, and good site code. The only difference here is that most people haven’t taken the time yet to get-to-know Bing’s platform. Many, in fact, haven’t bothered to sign up for Bing Webmaster and many haven’t bothered to submit their XML sitemaps to Bing either. However, because of this impending change, perhaps more will act because it soon will become much more important. 25-28% of the market is nothing to sneeze at…

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Google Social Search

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Turns out, you can take your network with you. Check out Google Social Search and you’ll see what I mean. Google Social Search is a new concept at Google (currently in beta) that allows you to easily find online content written by people you know along side your regular search results. So if, for example, a friend of your has blogged about a specific subject when you search you will see their social media content integrated into Google’s normal listings. This is NOT personalized search, which is already happening on Google but an experiment that combines search and social media elements. The obvious reason behind this is that you will trust the opinions of your network more that you trust content from people you don’t know. Makes great sense and something we look forward to seeing develop. We fully expect that social search will not be a trend and will indeed be a sign of things to come.

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Bing Increases Market Share

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Surprising to no-one except for me apparently, Bing.com has increased it’s share of the search engine market to 10.3%.  Just a few short days ago, in fact, I predicted that Google’s market share was going to increase this year at the expense of Bing and Yahoo! Instead it appears that Bing is eating away at both Google and Yahoo’s share! Google still has a healthy 72% of the market and their market share has not dropped much, maybe a point or two. Still Bing’s increases have me wondering…why? Why is Bing so popular now? True, Bing.com’s ad campaign last year’s was brilliant and steered the engine in the proper direction but to see increases month after month is surprising. Google is still the engine that people use and, by and large, many online marketers do NOT use Bing.com for advertising purposes. However, with a 10% share, I believe that we all may need to rethink that strategy. We love Google but we also love the fact that Google may finally have some competition so that we can have some advertising alternatives for our clients. In this case, competition is healthy, very healthy, and I look forward to the battle ahead this coming year.

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Bold Predictions in Online Marketing for 2010

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Okay, so I’ll admit I was wrong about a few of the predictions I made last year. Yes, Google is still the King and Mobile Search has still not yet hit the big time. Still, I enter 2010 with a renewed passion for what we do and where our Industry is going. Many of the changes that were made last year and many that are coming only strengthened the case for building better websites. In 2010 the best sites that best meet the needs of their target markets are those that survive while spammy sites go by the way of the dinosaur.  So, that said, below are my bold predictions in Online Marketing for 2010:

Link Builders Go Bye Bye – As a major algorithm cleanup, Google and other engines will drop or purge sites that artificially bought their way to top organic SEO rankings via buying links. Link building companies will start to become obsolete as link building for SEO becomes ineffective. The financial impact is felt as far away as India and the Philippines, where many of these link building companies were stationed.

Shady SEO Companies Go Bye Bye – The search engines will move away from “seo tactics” and instead rank sites based on their “quality.”  Sites that best hit their target markets, judged by low bounce rate and audience engagement will be the sites that rank well across all platforms.  Shady SEO companies that built their success based on “fooling the search engines” will be exposed and will eventually vanish from site. Good SEO companies that focus on all facets of a web site (web design, web development, web marketing) will become the new “go to” companies. The financial impact is also felt as far away as India and the Philippines, where many of the shady optimization companies were stationed.

Google Increases Market Share to 80% – In 2010, I predict Google will increase it’s market share from currently about 72% to 80% of the market. Their continued growth comes at the expense of both Yahoo! and Bing, where audience share will decline because Google (as a result of algorithm changes) will be providing it’s audience better search results.

Mobile Search – I know I’ve been saying it for years but this is finally the year when Mobile Search hits the big time. Already with staggering growth, it is shocking that mobile search is still not a major part of most people’s marketing mix. In 2010, I predict that mobile gets into the mainstream of all marketers alike, both global and locally-based.

Conversion Optimization Gets Its Due- Finally, conversion optimization will not be just for serious marketers but instead will be a tactic and a topic of discussion amongst everyone who markets online. Brought on by last year’s recession, the business of “improving your bottom line” just by tweaking your landing pages, your messages, etc. will get a serious look. Budgets for conversion optimization in 2010 will be allocated accordingly.

Change is Coming – Something, somewhere, someone is lurking around the corner waiting to capture the hearts and minds of Internet users much like Twitter and Facebook did in 2009. Whether it be a new social media site, a change in technology, or the way that we market ourselves online, one prediction we can count on each and every year is that there likely will be a major change to look forward to in the coming year.

Will any or all of these bold prediction turn out? Only time with tell. One thing for sure is that everyone, from peers to customers, are looking forward to a better year and more prosperous 2010.

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Is SEO Dead?

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

Three BIG announcements two weeks ago at the Googleplex has many wondering if the practice of “search engine optimization” is dead. We don’t think so but these changes will certainly impact the way you should go about optimizing your website.

  1. Real-time search – Google introduced real time which now pulls latest news stories from news feeds, blogs, and Twitter posts and lists these stories alongside your regular search results. How this impacts SEO: Real time indicates a swing that puts Social Media into the forefront. Your optimization efforts must now 100 percent include social media strategies or you’ll be missing the boat.
  2. Google Caffeine – Google will become much faster once they launch their latest update, called appropriately enough the Google “Caffeine” update. Sites that load quickly will place higher more often than not than sites that don’t. In addition to speed, this update will level the playing field by reducing the impact of your inbound links (since Google obviously knows that optimizers have literally been buying their way to the top) and will instead focus on good sites with good quality content. How this impacts SEO: Caffeine will ensure that sites that meet the needs of their target markets (judged by low bounce rates and audience engagement) will rank higher than those that don’t. This update will dramatically impact how we go about optimizing as more focus will be spent on web design, development, and content. Less focus will be made on tactics that optimizers have used for years such as link buying, link baiting, content development for the sole purpose of adding page counts. Black hat techniques will be rendered ineffective by this update clearing the way for legitimate websites to start ranking well on their own merits.
  3. Google Personalization – Google is now showing different results to different users, meaning your search results will likely be very different from my search results.  Personalization has been around for years but now you get personalized results whether or not you are logged in to a Google account. How this impacts SEO: This spells the end of the road for the ranking report since rankings will vary based on geo-location, IP address, search history, etc. Instead, optimizers must now focus on creating sites that work. Optimizers that spend more time creating a better site are those that will find consistently high rankings regardless of personalization.

While SEO is absolutely not dead, some of the questionable practices that were created to give artificially high results for clients is finally gone (hurray!). The day has come where online marketers absolutely get to be online marketers. Optimizers that only know “how-to-fool” the search engines will soon be exposed and left for Interactive Agencies and online marketers that understand…marketing.

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Search Optimization: A New Look At Search Engine Optimization

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

Consider for a minute that “search engine optimization” should rightfully start being called “search optimization” and you’ll see where this thing is headed. In fact, the way we view and use search in our lives is rapidly starting to change. For example, new advances from the major search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing.com are not only speeding up the delivery of our results but providing a whole lot of new ways to view them. Soon-to-launch “real-time search” has been a mainstay on Twitter but is now being opened up on sites like Facebook to mobile search brought on by major advances in mobile technology like 3G and 4G, Many of us could not have predicted years ago that these would be the latest trends that are shaping the new search paradigm:

  1. Real-Time Search – How important is it to the engines that searchers be able to get results in real-time? So much so that each have inked deals with the social media sites to integrate their results into theirs. For a preview of what’s likely to come, check out www.bing.com/twitter.  To get to real-time search, you’ll click the “Show options” link above the search results. Then you’ll see a “latest” option
  2. Search By Voice – Already integrated as an iPhone app, searchers talk into their phones and (usually) get relevant results back.
  3. Search By Location – Search for products in stock near you, for example ,
  4. Search By Site – Take or upload pictures and the engines will try to recognize the product, bar code, landmark etc. and provide relevant results for you.

A new decade is coming and along with it new search possibilities.

If you’d like to know how you can prepare yourself for these upcoming changes, feel free to contact me ron@sdinteractive.com.

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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 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:

  1. 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.
  2. Build your brand – branding and positioning will also grow in importance for Google.
  3. 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).
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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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Do You Want Better Online Marketing Results?

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

How To Get Better Online Results!

Do you want to get better results from your online marketing efforts? We’ve got an easy solution. Why not ask your customers?? I know this answer seems obvious, simple, even down-right ridiculous, but truly it is the most forgotten way to gain quick and valuable insight that just may help you improve your marketing results.

So how do you “ask your customer” exactly? For starters, information can be collected from surveys, focus groups, direct mail and phone calls. When it comes to Internet marketing, however, none of those options are as immediate or as effective as onsite testing.

Onsite testing, meaning running live marketing experiments on specific landing pages of your site, will take the debate out of what you think your site visitors want and tell you precisely what you know your site visitors want. To get started, all you need is a website, an analytics program, and a willingness to experiment with your site (all in the name of higher conversions, of course).

Onsite testing can take the form of A/B testing (testing one variable at a time) or Multivariate Testing (testing several variables at a time). Each method has their pros and cons but both can give you an immediate boost in your conversion rate. 

So what items should you test? For starters, try these:

• Test Headlines – Headers occupy a prominent space on your page.  Often overlooked, testing headlines can make a large impact on your bottom line. 
• Test Graphics – Your image may be fine but perhaps another will connect better with your audience. See if you can create a boost with changes in your imagery.
• Test Punctuation – Use different types of punctuation to see how your customers react. The difference between “Buy Today.” And “Buy Today!” may seem minor to us, but could dramatically improve your results.
• Test Design/ Layout – Perhaps you need an entirely new look/feel to get the message across. Try an A/B test to see if the updated look/feel increases sales.
• Test Buttons – There are many factors to consider when choosing buttons including the size, color, and text used in your button. Experiment and see what happens.

A final thought
While most people are now comfortable running ad campaigns, a surprisingly low number of these marketers are engaging in online testing. And if you aren’t trying to test your site for improvements, you aren’t taking advantage of the inherent benefit of online marketing – the ability to listen to your customer. Everything is measurable and your customers are telling you what they want with the behaviors and click-streams.

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3 Important San Diego Internet Marketing Trends to Watch

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

Internet Marketing is ever-changing. What once worked well for your business a few months ago may not be working for you at all any longer. Competitors eventually learn the same tricks, enter the same channels, and the cost per customer acquisition goes higher. Much higher.  That’s why it’s important to know what’s coming, in order to hopefully get a jump on your competition.  Here is what we see as important trends for you to watch:

1) Search gets competitive- It used to be that you could thrive with just a solid search engine marketing strategy alone.  Nowadays, if you want to effectively compete online, it appears you will have to extend your reach beyond search engine marketing.  Everyone has gotten into the search game and what that means to you is that you now have to compete with a lot more businesses for the same traffic - in the same limited space. Expect higher cost per click prices and a lot more time (and effort) involved in obtaining and sustaining a first page ranking.  To counter, consider ad network marketing as a lower-cost alternative. Ad networks allow for behavioral and demographic targeting and costs are much lower than PPC.  

2) Local Search Booms- For most San Diego businesses, the search engines alone will not be enough. Instead being listed in local directory sites like Local.com, YellowPages.com, and Yahoo! Local will be essentials. In San Diego, businesses can get listings on sites like SanDiego.com and should. Expect new and improved local search sites and great opportunities locally to be seen. 

3) Social Media Marketing Grows Some More  - Before Facebook there was MySpace. Before MySpace there was Friendster. Now there is Twitter, LinkedIn, Tagged, Plaxo, Merchant Circle, Yelp, etc. Where is one to go?  The short answer, much the chagrin of people trying to keep up, is everywhere. Each one has their pros and cons yet all share the same desire – to connect you to people. Expect many new sites and many interations of old sites.  Like it or not…Social media is here to stay and your participation is required.

Keep your eye on these emerging trends and buckle up.  Change is here to stay!

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