"We've got some big news for you. Brace yourself. There are search options beyond Google--and we're not talking about Yahoo! and MSN. Vertical search is on the rise, and whether you're looking for business products, services or information, or a new place to advertise, vertical search sites can benefit your company. Market research firm Outsell predicts that the vertical search market will reach $1 billion by 2009. While Google gets around 65 percent of search traffic today, it doesn't mean it's always the best place for your search."
10 Search Engines You Don't Know About - Entrepreneur.com - MSNBC.com
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Are Search Ads a Waste of Money?
"NEW YORK New research by Microsoft suggests a big chunk of search ad spending is wasted because advertisers pay top dollar for high ad placements clicked by consumers who are en route to their sites anyway. Listings tied to such 'branded' keywords, typically a company's name or products, eat up about half of search budgets, Atlas estimates."
Are Search Ads a Waste of Money?
Are Search Ads a Waste of Money?
Friday, July 13, 2007
Hay in a Needle Stack By Steve Plunkett
If you Google “advertising,” how come M/C/C isn’t #1?
That sounds like a reasonable question, doesn’t it? We are a full-service advertising agency. And how about the phrase “public relations firm?” Shouldn’t we come up on the first page for that?
We are a PR firm, after all. And we do have industry-leading expertise in search engine optimization. So why isn’t M/C/C #1 across the board for all advertising-related searches?
Because making M/C/C #1 in those overly broad searches would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. It’s just not worth the effort.
For starters, the M/C/C website does come up first in searches for “dallas texas advertising agencies and PR firms,” “creative print advertising” and “Dallas ad agency creative magazine layouts” … I could go on and on and on and on. This phenomenon has been called the “long tail of search,” meaning that a website owner has chosen not to spend its resources coming up in overly broad searches for terms like “advertising” or even for a phrase such as “advertising agency.” Instead, relying on the long tail of search, an organization generates more traffic to its website by optimizing its website based on variations of certain relevant keywords, potentially creating thousands of search-friendly phrases. In other words, the haystack is replaced by a needle stack.
Let me explain.
Lesson #1: Optimize for your specialty.
On the Internet, if users don’t know who you are, they will look up what you do. At M/C/C, we specialize in marketing for a number of business sectors, technology products being one of them. We can and do provide advertising services to high-tech clients in Ireland, Scotland, Canada, California, etc., so when prospects around the world search for the best “technology advertising agency,” we make sure we rank high in Google, Yahoo! and MSN for that keyword phrase. The thinking here is simple. When we promise to be effective marketers in the technology industry, we’d better well know how to reach people in the technology business, right?
So when prospects see M/C/C ranked first (out of millions of search returns) we’ve already made a positive impression. And that’s before visitors have even clicked on our website.
Google “Technology Advertising.” The first return is a blog on new technologies in advertising. For a select group of users, it’s a valid result for those search terms. However, if someone is looking for an advertising agency specializing in the technology field, the second return is exactly what they need, our website.You may ask how we get our website ranked in the top five or even on the front page of 267,000,000 results for those terms. The nitty-gritty is complicated, but the strategy is simple. We target our website optimization according to our specialties. You should, too. And you should use the terminology that your prospects use for those specialties.
Lesson #2: Speak your prospects’ language.
Do you have statistics on your website visitors? If not, please go to http://mcc.hitslink.com/ and start gathering invaluable information on your website traffic. Odds are, many of your visitors reach your website by searching for your company’s name. But what about prospective clients that have never heard of you or don’t know your name? Using http://mcc.hitslink.com/, you can find out how they found you, then optimize your website according to the search terms that they’re using. Again using the M/C/C site as an example, the second-most frequently searched term for visitors is “advertising layout.” Now, there’s no telling for sure, but logic and experience suggest to us that most visitors who search “advertising layout” are looking for samples of good advertising work, which they can find in the portfolio section of our website. Logic also dictates that many of these visitors are prospective clients looking for a new ad agency. If so, we’ve beaten our competition to the punch simply by learning the language of our prospects and optimizing our website accordingly. Logical enough, right?
Lesson #3: Get local.
Real estate agents say that it’s all about location, location, location. For the most part, that’s true for search engines, too. Oftentimes, when searchers have difficulty getting the right information from broad search terms, they get local. They add their state or city name to their previous search terms. That makes localization, or “GeoTargeting,” as Google calls it, one of the best variables to improve your optimization strategy. In the case of the M/C/C website, we rank second in the results for “technology advertising.” By simply adding “Dallas” to their phrase, searchers will find us in the #1 spot. That’s a big deal considering how much “real estate” goes for on Google’s first page.
And again being #1 for your prospects’ searches enhances your branding and makes a great impression BEFORE visitors even start reading your marketing copy. It’s tough to beat credibility like that.
Lesson #4: Explore all viable options.
So far in 2007, visitors have used 5,060 different search terms to reach our website from search engine results. To illustrate the variety of their searches and the value of optimizing your site to match these searches, the following is a small selection of those terms and how we rank within those searches. Remember, rankings in search results may vary from week to week. The rankings below were accurate as of July 13, 2007.
Dallas Advertising Agency and PR Firm#1 out of 2,190,000 results
Dallas Technology Advertising Agency#1 out of 2,210,000 results
Dallas Technology Public Relations Firm#1 out of 2,400,000 results
Technology Industry Public Relations#4 out of 124,000,000 results
Public Relations for Technology Companies#2 out of 156,000,000 results
Public Relations Firm in Dallas Texas#5 out of 2,080,000 results
Public Relations Companies Dallas Texas#3 out of 2,030,000 results
Media Relations for Technology Companies#5 out of 58,000,00 results
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Website visitors could be reaching your site 5,000 different ways. If they’re not, perhaps you should talk to someone who can make that happen.
You can start by Googling “Dallas Advertising Agency and PR Firm.” We’re pretty sure the agency in the first non-sponsored spot can do a bang-up job. You know, the one right under the map?
E-mail the author: Steve Plunkett
That sounds like a reasonable question, doesn’t it? We are a full-service advertising agency. And how about the phrase “public relations firm?” Shouldn’t we come up on the first page for that?
We are a PR firm, after all. And we do have industry-leading expertise in search engine optimization. So why isn’t M/C/C #1 across the board for all advertising-related searches?
Because making M/C/C #1 in those overly broad searches would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. It’s just not worth the effort.
For starters, the M/C/C website does come up first in searches for “dallas texas advertising agencies and PR firms,” “creative print advertising” and “Dallas ad agency creative magazine layouts” … I could go on and on and on and on. This phenomenon has been called the “long tail of search,” meaning that a website owner has chosen not to spend its resources coming up in overly broad searches for terms like “advertising” or even for a phrase such as “advertising agency.” Instead, relying on the long tail of search, an organization generates more traffic to its website by optimizing its website based on variations of certain relevant keywords, potentially creating thousands of search-friendly phrases. In other words, the haystack is replaced by a needle stack.
Let me explain.
Lesson #1: Optimize for your specialty.
On the Internet, if users don’t know who you are, they will look up what you do. At M/C/C, we specialize in marketing for a number of business sectors, technology products being one of them. We can and do provide advertising services to high-tech clients in Ireland, Scotland, Canada, California, etc., so when prospects around the world search for the best “technology advertising agency,” we make sure we rank high in Google, Yahoo! and MSN for that keyword phrase. The thinking here is simple. When we promise to be effective marketers in the technology industry, we’d better well know how to reach people in the technology business, right?
So when prospects see M/C/C ranked first (out of millions of search returns) we’ve already made a positive impression. And that’s before visitors have even clicked on our website.
Google “Technology Advertising.” The first return is a blog on new technologies in advertising. For a select group of users, it’s a valid result for those search terms. However, if someone is looking for an advertising agency specializing in the technology field, the second return is exactly what they need, our website.You may ask how we get our website ranked in the top five or even on the front page of 267,000,000 results for those terms. The nitty-gritty is complicated, but the strategy is simple. We target our website optimization according to our specialties. You should, too. And you should use the terminology that your prospects use for those specialties.
Lesson #2: Speak your prospects’ language.
Do you have statistics on your website visitors? If not, please go to http://mcc.hitslink.com/ and start gathering invaluable information on your website traffic. Odds are, many of your visitors reach your website by searching for your company’s name. But what about prospective clients that have never heard of you or don’t know your name? Using http://mcc.hitslink.com/, you can find out how they found you, then optimize your website according to the search terms that they’re using. Again using the M/C/C site as an example, the second-most frequently searched term for visitors is “advertising layout.” Now, there’s no telling for sure, but logic and experience suggest to us that most visitors who search “advertising layout” are looking for samples of good advertising work, which they can find in the portfolio section of our website. Logic also dictates that many of these visitors are prospective clients looking for a new ad agency. If so, we’ve beaten our competition to the punch simply by learning the language of our prospects and optimizing our website accordingly. Logical enough, right?
Lesson #3: Get local.
Real estate agents say that it’s all about location, location, location. For the most part, that’s true for search engines, too. Oftentimes, when searchers have difficulty getting the right information from broad search terms, they get local. They add their state or city name to their previous search terms. That makes localization, or “GeoTargeting,” as Google calls it, one of the best variables to improve your optimization strategy. In the case of the M/C/C website, we rank second in the results for “technology advertising.” By simply adding “Dallas” to their phrase, searchers will find us in the #1 spot. That’s a big deal considering how much “real estate” goes for on Google’s first page.
And again being #1 for your prospects’ searches enhances your branding and makes a great impression BEFORE visitors even start reading your marketing copy. It’s tough to beat credibility like that.
Lesson #4: Explore all viable options.
So far in 2007, visitors have used 5,060 different search terms to reach our website from search engine results. To illustrate the variety of their searches and the value of optimizing your site to match these searches, the following is a small selection of those terms and how we rank within those searches. Remember, rankings in search results may vary from week to week. The rankings below were accurate as of July 13, 2007.
Dallas Advertising Agency and PR Firm#1 out of 2,190,000 results
Dallas Technology Advertising Agency#1 out of 2,210,000 results
Dallas Technology Public Relations Firm#1 out of 2,400,000 results
Technology Industry Public Relations#4 out of 124,000,000 results
Public Relations for Technology Companies#2 out of 156,000,000 results
Public Relations Firm in Dallas Texas#5 out of 2,080,000 results
Public Relations Companies Dallas Texas#3 out of 2,030,000 results
Media Relations for Technology Companies#5 out of 58,000,00 results
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Website visitors could be reaching your site 5,000 different ways. If they’re not, perhaps you should talk to someone who can make that happen.
You can start by Googling “Dallas Advertising Agency and PR Firm.” We’re pretty sure the agency in the first non-sponsored spot can do a bang-up job. You know, the one right under the map?
E-mail the author: Steve Plunkett
Friday, June 15, 2007
Search Engine Ranking Factors
This document represents the collective wisdom of 37 leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization. Together, they have voted on the various factors that are estimated to comprise Google's ranking algorithm (the method by which the search engine orders results). The result is a resource of incredible value - although not every one of the estimated 200+ ranking elements are included, it is my opinion that 90-95% of the knowledge required about Google's algorithm is contained below.
- Rand Fishkin, CEO & Jeff Pollard, Web Developer Launched on April 2, 2007
- Rand Fishkin, CEO & Jeff Pollard, Web Developer Launched on April 2, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Google, Yahoo gain share in U.S. Web search market
CNET News.com: "Google has increased its share of the U.S. Web search market to 47.4 percent with a gain of 0.4 percent during December, while No. 2 ranked Yahoo also edged higher, a survey said Monday.
Web audience measurement firm comScore Networks said No. 3-ranked Microsoft's share slid 0.5 percent to 10.5 percent of U.S. Web searches while InterActiveCorp's Ask.com's share dipped 0.1 percent to 5.4 percent.
Google has gained share in 16 of the last 17 months in the United States, the world's largest Internet market, according to comScore data. "
Web audience measurement firm comScore Networks said No. 3-ranked Microsoft's share slid 0.5 percent to 10.5 percent of U.S. Web searches while InterActiveCorp's Ask.com's share dipped 0.1 percent to 5.4 percent.
Google has gained share in 16 of the last 17 months in the United States, the world's largest Internet market, according to comScore data. "
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Search Engine Market Share
To say there is a search engine market share war is like saying the pet goldfish has a chance against the great white shark. Google has increased its leadership role from a total of 67.39% usage market share to start 2006 to a total of 76.10% market share to start 2007. The market share losers:
Yahoo! has dropped from 13.02% to 10.61%.
MSN has fallen behind (far behind) Google UK.
AOL has fallen into the "Others" category - barely half of Google Canada - and, didn't break into the top 6 this year.
So what can the other search engines do to stop the great white shark? Stop acting like pet goldfish, and start acting like a school of piranha. If someone with resources would start providing better search results with no click fraud loving sites that are purely ads with no real content, people would use it!
Search Engine Market Share Statistics for 2007 vs. 2006
As of 1/1/2007
52.02% Google
10.61% Yahoo!
8.40% Google UK
5.04% MSN
4.39% Google AdSense
3.26% Google Canada
16.19% Other
As of 1/1/2006
48.09% Google
13.02% Yahoo!
9.18% MSN
7.45% Google UK
3.23% Google Canada
2.93% AOL
16.06% Other
Yahoo! has dropped from 13.02% to 10.61%.
MSN has fallen behind (far behind) Google UK.
AOL has fallen into the "Others" category - barely half of Google Canada - and, didn't break into the top 6 this year.
So what can the other search engines do to stop the great white shark? Stop acting like pet goldfish, and start acting like a school of piranha. If someone with resources would start providing better search results with no click fraud loving sites that are purely ads with no real content, people would use it!
Search Engine Market Share Statistics for 2007 vs. 2006
As of 1/1/2007
52.02% Google
10.61% Yahoo!
8.40% Google UK
5.04% MSN
4.39% Google AdSense
3.26% Google Canada
16.19% Other
As of 1/1/2006
48.09% Google
13.02% Yahoo!
9.18% MSN
7.45% Google UK
3.23% Google Canada
2.93% AOL
16.06% Other
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Can “You” Damage Your Company’s Reputation?
Can “You” Damage Your Company’s Reputation?
By Steve Plunkett
While it’s true that a large portion of the population still gets the bulk of its news from traditional media outlets like the television news and newspapers, there are other members of the population that have expanded the scope of where they get their news. They were the “You” of TIME Magazine’s famed “Person of the Year” for 2006. By choosing “You,” the magazine was talking about people that ingest, filter and re-supply hundreds, if not thousands, of bits of information via a variety of news sources in a sort of new electronic version of word of mouth. The term du jour is “citizen journalist,” and it’s important to know what makes these influencers tick – because, while they sometimes say good things about your company, there’s an awful lot of negative information being posted on the Web by these people. Your company needs to be aware of what’s going on so you can protect yourself from “You.”
To demonstrate the power of citizen journalism and its influence, consider the following example: Last year, I was unhappy about my treatment at a particular auto dealership so I blogged about it. To this day, if you put the name of the automobile dealership into a search engine, one of the first results that comes up is my blog entry, which recounts my experience from a factual perspective. While I won’t go into great detail here, let’s just say that all of the potential customers that click on my blog before clicking the auto dealer’s website link may think twice before heading over to that dealership.
It’s important to remember that “You” can work fast to report on a product or service. How fast? Well, all it takes for “You” to be an instant media outlet is Internet access and a camera phone, which are both plentiful these days. If your company releases a product, “You” can be the first to purchase it then publish a video and review of it on a blog and/or YouTube within minutes. If the original blog has a downstream blog feed enabled, that blog post shows up on someone else’s blog (or several blogs). By sending out a MySpace bulletin or posting a comment with a link, “You” can touch even more people. “You” may then stop over at CNet and drop some comments about the original blog entry. Reuters and the Washington Post have blogs that allow users to leave comments, too. Oops, I almost forgot to mention that hundreds of TV stations, radio stations, newspapers and magazines have blogs that will allow users to post comments.
Within minutes, that original review of your company’s product will be linked to on websites and posted in the comments sections of blogs all over the Web. Before long, it will begin creeping its way toward the top of the search engine results. That means that when someone types in the name of your product in a search engine, that original blog post may come up as one of the top results. You may be thinking, “Wow! That’s great free publicity!” But what if the original blog post is a slam of your new product, or what if that customer bought a defective unit or is using your product ineffectively or improperly and, for millions of people, the first impression of your product is a negative one?
How can your company avoid this? Work with a knowledgeable Search Engine Optimization (SEO) provider. It’s a simple solution that can help to make sure your company website comes up first – ahead of “non-official” websites – in the search engine results for searches on your company’s name and product. That way, people get your official company information instead of what “You” had to say.
By Steve Plunkett
While it’s true that a large portion of the population still gets the bulk of its news from traditional media outlets like the television news and newspapers, there are other members of the population that have expanded the scope of where they get their news. They were the “You” of TIME Magazine’s famed “Person of the Year” for 2006. By choosing “You,” the magazine was talking about people that ingest, filter and re-supply hundreds, if not thousands, of bits of information via a variety of news sources in a sort of new electronic version of word of mouth. The term du jour is “citizen journalist,” and it’s important to know what makes these influencers tick – because, while they sometimes say good things about your company, there’s an awful lot of negative information being posted on the Web by these people. Your company needs to be aware of what’s going on so you can protect yourself from “You.”
To demonstrate the power of citizen journalism and its influence, consider the following example: Last year, I was unhappy about my treatment at a particular auto dealership so I blogged about it. To this day, if you put the name of the automobile dealership into a search engine, one of the first results that comes up is my blog entry, which recounts my experience from a factual perspective. While I won’t go into great detail here, let’s just say that all of the potential customers that click on my blog before clicking the auto dealer’s website link may think twice before heading over to that dealership.
It’s important to remember that “You” can work fast to report on a product or service. How fast? Well, all it takes for “You” to be an instant media outlet is Internet access and a camera phone, which are both plentiful these days. If your company releases a product, “You” can be the first to purchase it then publish a video and review of it on a blog and/or YouTube within minutes. If the original blog has a downstream blog feed enabled, that blog post shows up on someone else’s blog (or several blogs). By sending out a MySpace bulletin or posting a comment with a link, “You” can touch even more people. “You” may then stop over at CNet and drop some comments about the original blog entry. Reuters and the Washington Post have blogs that allow users to leave comments, too. Oops, I almost forgot to mention that hundreds of TV stations, radio stations, newspapers and magazines have blogs that will allow users to post comments.
Within minutes, that original review of your company’s product will be linked to on websites and posted in the comments sections of blogs all over the Web. Before long, it will begin creeping its way toward the top of the search engine results. That means that when someone types in the name of your product in a search engine, that original blog post may come up as one of the top results. You may be thinking, “Wow! That’s great free publicity!” But what if the original blog post is a slam of your new product, or what if that customer bought a defective unit or is using your product ineffectively or improperly and, for millions of people, the first impression of your product is a negative one?
How can your company avoid this? Work with a knowledgeable Search Engine Optimization (SEO) provider. It’s a simple solution that can help to make sure your company website comes up first – ahead of “non-official” websites – in the search engine results for searches on your company’s name and product. That way, people get your official company information instead of what “You” had to say.
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