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Posts Tagged ‘search marketing’
Local Search Continues Expansion with Enhancements to Yahoo Local & Live.com
Thursday, September 14th, 2006
As I’ve said earlier, local search is increasingly the optimum marketing medium for local businesses (from auto repair to therapists). Clearly, the big search engines agree as they continue to enhance their localized search services. The latest enhancements come from Yahoo and Microsoft’s Live.com; who are, of course, trying to keep up with Google. A good overview of these latest local search features is here.
Tags: search marketing
Posted in e-marketing, search engine optimization, search marketing | No Comments »
Search Marketing Continues to Increase in Scope & Complexity
Thursday, June 8th, 2006
A new Jupiter Research report confirms what those of us who work in search marketing know, search marketing is rapidly growing its share of the business marketing mix, much of it is outsourced contract work, and the whole game (including tracking results, analytics, search advertising and organic search optimization) is becoming more complex. Read the Jupiter Research summary
Tags: search marketing
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Search Engine Market Share Stats
Monday, February 13th, 2006
I get asked on a regular basis “How much of the search engine traffic comes from Google as compared to the others?” Well, the first point is that the traffic to a particular site varies depending on its audience and its keyword positions at various search engines. For example, my ComBridges.com site gets a higher percentage of its traffic than what’s shown here from Google, while my MediaMall.com site gets less. That said, here’s a chart from a eMarketer article comparing 2004 to 2005 searches from the “big three.” And, if you don’t pay close attention to the changes in this market, you can see that the 80-20 rule applies here with about 81% of the searches being done on what are now the three main search engines (Google, Yahoo! & MSN). The other 19% is spread across a large number of much smaller sites.
Tags: search advertising, search marketing
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Convergence Connects with Local Search: Spot Runner
Monday, January 23rd, 2006
I was talkin’ with an old media buddy about the CES show, and our sentiments were echoed in this Sunday’s “Media Frenzy” column in the NYTimes Business section, with this opening line: “Convergence is back…” In fact, it may be more accurate to say it’s finally here. And I’m talking about more than iPod video and related video sales by Google and others.
On another front, those who work in search engine marketing and search engine advertising (like Google AdWords and Yahoo Search advertising) know that local search is hot. Local businesses (from pizza parlors to car repair shops) are benefitting more from local search engine marketing than from those old fashioned and expensive yellow pages ads. 
Case in point, a friend’s petsitting business is getting 9 leads from free search engine rankings compared to 1 from a $300/month yellow pages display ad that she’s just discontinued. For those who want to learn more, this is the best e-book I’ve seen on the subject of Local Search. >
What was most kewl in the article referenced above, IMHO, was Spot Runner. This web-based application (“software as service”) uses pre-produced TV spot “templates” and computerized insertion techniques to help small local businesses get on cable TV as painlessly and inexpensively as possible. Impressive stuff. And there’s an opportunity there for video producers as well. At least I think so. I need to get into that service in more detail. Comments and experiences welcome…
Tags: search marketing
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Search is a 2-Way Street: “Google Base” Breaks Posting Barrier
Wednesday, November 16th, 2005
I know it’s starting to look like I’m a bit obsessed with Google. Maybe so. But, I also think that I know a true innovator when I see one. This time I salute Google for creating a new kind of interactivity via Google Base. This new service enables anyone (meaning folks without the slightest technical ability) to publish content, from recipes to want ads, you name it, for free. And, of course, because they are Google, they are making all of this new, easy-to-post content searchable, or as they describe it, Google Base is “a place where you can add all types of information that we’ll host and make searchable online.” Thus, now, anyone anywhere can add content to the global information database without needing to know how to post to a blog or how to build a web page. With user-friendly categories and more users, this new “channel” could become quite powerful. As this analysis agrees, look out Craig’s List, Amazon and EBay… Stay tuned…
Tags: search marketing
Posted in e-business, e-marketing, internet marketing, search marketing, small biz e-biz | No Comments »
Another Google Disruption: Free Site Statistics
Monday, November 14th, 2005
A visit to one of the top website traffic statistic packages, Urchin and urchin.com, now delivers this logo, “Google Analytics” and an auto-forward to http://www.google.com/analytics/. Further, to make their acquisition of Urchin even more disruptive, Google is now offering this top package (which we use at ComBridges) for that magic Internet four-letter word: FREE.
Read the Information Week story, “Google Offers Web Analytics for Free”
Tags: search marketing
Posted in e-business, search marketing | No Comments »
Warner Brothers Diggin’ Digital for Development of Music Talent
Friday, November 11th, 2005
Before I could even draft my post about major “disruptive” technologies, a major record company announced its new initiative to “validate” talent via Internet marketing. You gotta love that it’s a psychedelic relic, Jac Holzman, who’s master-minding this effort. Doesn’t it make you think twice when one of the big boys is ” trying to use the Internet to produce and distribute music in ways that circumvent the usual channels…” ?
To quote Holzman from the Washington Post, “‘Physical product has its place in the world,’ but using the Internet is a faster and cheaper way of searching for and validating talent, said Holzman, a longtime proponent of independent music who made it big by signing the Doors on the Elektra music label in 1966.” Maybe these old guys will finally “get it” after all. 
Washington Post: Warner Music Turns to Web
Tags: search marketing
Posted in search marketing, technology | No Comments »
Google’s Great is the Greatness of Change
Friday, October 21st, 2005
An Addendum to my post below… The greatness of Google’s accomplishments are in way they are re-inventing media and advertising. “Changing the way… ” as quoted here: “They’ve come up with a new product that is changing the way people are advertising,” said ThinkEquity analyst John Tinker. “They are changing the way people are doing business.” Source: Reuters: “Google’s ’sea-change’ sets stock sailing”
Tags: search marketing
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Google the Great Gets Greater
Friday, October 21st, 2005
Sure. I know that you don’t measure the true value of a company by it’s market cap. And, of course, I know that profits aren’t everything. But, a 7x increase in net earnings ain’t bad. And, you better believe that pay-per-click search engine advertising is MAJOR (even though, full disclosure, it’s part of my business. Managing Google AdWords campaigns is one of the services we offer.)
Just the same, Google’s latest earnings report is beyond impressive. So is their 45% search engine market share. (So is the fact that “Google” has become a verb.) So is the perspective of the book I’m reading, The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture.
It seems that Google in particular, and search in general, along with the financial fuel of search engine advertising are literally defining the next waves of e-business and e-experience, as well as what’s coming in every web surfer’s next “set” of waves… Stay tuned.
Tags: search advertising, search marketing
Posted in e-marketing, search marketing, technology, user generated content | No Comments »
Googlers Gripe Upon Getting Googled
Tuesday, August 9th, 2005
This irony is lost somewhere between “Do what I say, not what I do” and “Do unto others…” It seems that CNET News Googled Google CEO Eric Schmidt and then printed some of what it found. The result? Not praise for creativity, but a promised year of silent shoulder, black out, personna non gratis, “we’re not talking to you anymore” pissy, reactionary, angry, downright un-Google-like behavior. Go figure. Here’s one journal’s rendition of the story.
Tags: search marketing
Posted in search marketing | 1 Comment »
