Posts filed under 'Search Marketing'
With the credit crunch biting hard, economic slowdown and falling retail sales it is encouraging to read today that online retail continues to grow, with this years online retail spend expecting to grow by 32% compared to offline retail sales which expect to see a minimal growth of 1.2% according to the European and UK internet consultancy group Verdict Research.
Online retail is currently worth around £20bn, an estimated 7% of overall retail spend and by 2012 Verdict forecast that this figure will rise to 14% or around £45bn.
With shoppers increasingly turning to the internet as an effective means of seeking out bargains and low-priced products, will an online retail presence become the difference between commercial success or failure? And will online apathy lead to a retail sales disaster?
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June 19th, 2008
E-Gain have launched the first of a raft of new search tools, enabling users to quickly and effectively develop a localised collection of phrases for use in their Paid Search campaigns.
The tool allows users to specify a term, the locality of the phrase (namely region, county and town), and the type of phrase matching they would like, which will then produce a range of phrases tailored to those requirements, which can be copied and pasted into your Paid Search campaign as required.
To try the tool visit
http://www.e-gain.co.uk/ppc-tools/geo-keywords.php
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March 24th, 2008
I was recently speaking to the Senior Developer of a reasonably big marcomss agency based in Bury, Lancashire who startled me somewhat with the following comment:
“most of our clients don’t really need OM to be honest…”
I have to say I was somewhat suprised by his approach to OM, however I would suggest many web development agencies are still guilty of the ‘Build and they will come’ approach to online, however with more and more organisations employing search marketing as part of their marcomms approach, it seems a somewhat naive approach to online, particularly where the rewards these days of getting it right online are often high.
Is he not aware that:
- 76% of UK’s online population have purchased online
- 80% of the UK are now broadband enabled.
- Internet shopping accounts for over 10% of all retail sales in the UK - given the proportion of spend this is a significant amount
- 80% of advertisers include the Internet in their marketing mix - can you really afford to ignore it?
- Above all - Online Marketing and Web Development sit side by side. You don’t just build a shop/service/office offline and then just leave it. So why would you do the same online. Surely to get the most out of online - you have to embrace it which means utilising all channels - your website and its marketing - together…
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February 18th, 2008
Net Magellan recently wrote a post entitled “SEO Certification - What Is Your View?” tackling the thorny issue of SEO certification in todays Search Marketing industry. This topic of conversation always brings a variety of perspectives and heated debate.
As the head of an Online Marketing organisation, dissecting the wheat from the chaff is often a difficult thing to do, particular within the UK SEO market. I recently had a candidate who came in - who had previously been responsible for campaign where the client operated in a moderately uncompetitive sector - and the client in questions was spending 2K a month on paid linkage. Now - putting in bluntly I would suggest most people with an inch of intelligence would be able to do that, let alone a specialist search engine optimisation specialist.
Having some form of certification one could argue would be useful here - perhaps along the lines of the Google Advertising Professional qualifications, where the examinee is tested on his knowledge of the system, however it is here in my opinion that the grey area in the SEO certification debate exists.
Just what is acceptable SEO. Google has developed a set of guidelines - Paid Links are bad/Content is good. However lets face it - in an industry where the stakes are getting bigger - and the market more competitive -who is going to share valuable knowledge unless they really have to.
Secondly - What constitutes good SEO. There has long been debate around the ethical nature of SEO - and what hat us various SEO experts are - whether it be Black, White or a varying shade of grey. Surely some common ground rules have to be developed before we can develop appropriate and valuable SEO certification - something you can associate with your CV with pride -and know a potential employer (such as E-Gain) is going to appreciate.
I don’t for one minute think certification is a bad idea - however at present I would add it is nothing more than confusing for a market that do not always understand SEO. Lets get the foundations in place and make it something that is going to benefit our industry - rather than do something for somethings sake…
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January 27th, 2008
Many organisations approach Online Marketing and Web Design/Development, as two seperate entities, and often this is translated into the development of new sites in particular. New sites will be developed and then potential online marketing partners (such as SEO specialists or Paid Search management specialists) may be approached on completion of the site to market the site (and lets be honest there are still a number of organisations that dont even do this). However how early should you start thinking about your online marketing. Well, from the very start, and heres why….
Domain Strategies
We recently undertook a pitch for a client, whose strategy entailed a number of very random domains, whose very existance was not based on functionality, requirements or merely targeting, more on lack of awareness of the web and how they could best maximise not only visibility but conversion
This was an extreme case but it did highlight a number of areas in which SEO experts play an important part as early on as the concept stage of a web design project. For example:
- Which URL is best to use from an SEO perspective
- Is this URL acceptable from a user pespective (I know us SEO’s love hyphens - but this strategy should only be considered where you have the non-hyphenated domain as well - IMO the shorter the domain the better)
- Which URL is to be the primary domain
- Acceptable use of canonical domains - Matt Cutts (from Google) wrote a very good blog on SEO URL canonicalisation on his blog quite a while back
- Correct usage of domains - From a technical perspective - it still amazes me how many people dont correctly implement this correctly. For example use ‘mysite.com’. Most developers will remember to setup the www.mysite.com - but what about mysite.com (note no www). Correctly implementing this part of your domain is not only good from a user perspective (users not typing in www can still find your site), but also from a search engine perspective as Google et al are all presented just one ‘copy’ of your site - not two.
Good domain management is not just limited to sites/organisations with an existing online presence. This is even more the case for new websites. I was recently talking to a web development colleague regarding a site they were looking after where the decision was made to create a brand new domain (and redirect the existing site with good search engine visibility). Unfortunately the SEO in particular was not considered, and subsequently the new site disappeared from the search engines. They are now addressing this iissue, but surely it wouild have been easier to think about this from the very beginning!
User/Search Engine Management
Guiding users to your website is fundamental to online marketing, no matter whether it is a behavioural or SEO based campaign. However unlike in Paid Search, and Behavioural activity, Search Engine Optimisation is reliant on third party activity, and thus even the best laid strategies can come unstuck if all aspects have not been considered.
This is particularly the case where a new site has replaced a legacy site, along with a new hierachiel structure, and page naming convention. Here a well structured SEO campaign can pay handsomely, redirecting both search engine spiders and users to the correct pages. This is often a part of web development, often neglected by the web development companies and one that can mean a lot of problems. For example, what about those users entering your site via a bookmarked page that no longer exists. A 301 from the old page to the new page will direct those users through to the replacement page. However at the very least, implement a bespoke 404.
Secondly, and maybe a little more contentious. Search Marketing agencies rely on stats for a number of reasons
- See what channels browsers are coming from
- See what terms browsers are coming into the site from
- Measure the effectiveness of their channel against existing/benchmarked channels.
- however one often missed aspect is - how are users using your site - what do they do when they get to your site, and why … which leads us on to
Conversion
I was recently presented with the existing statistics of a client we are now working with. The client had previously worked with a very big media agency (no names obviously mentioned), but despite a significant outlay (circa £50K) the total number of online conversions was 6. The client in question admittedly does work in a congested market, however a CPA of just under £10000 seems a bit high.
However one aspect of the client was their website. Whichever way you look at it, Online Marketing in nealy all cases is reliant on the website, either to further inform or convert customers. A badly delivered website won’t convert, just as irrelevant traffic won’t convert, and therefore all aspects of your online mix need to be considered if your online marketing strategy is to work effectively and deliver a cost-effective marketing channel for your organisation. This is particularly the case, with smaller organisations which can’t rely on brand power to make up for any issues there may be in the conversion funnel
Online Marketing needs to be considered right from the very beginning, probably even before your website has been considered. These days with digital spend and therefore digital awareness rising, you can’t afford to get it wrong….
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January 20th, 2008
I have disagreed with Andrew Girdwood from BigMouthMedia a couple of times in the past, however I wholeheartedly applauded him on his article on ‘Think of the human. Write for humans!‘, an article tackling the topic of keyword density, and in particular a response to comments by David Cushman and Sean Warwick.
There are a number of pages around that do occupy some reasonable positions for moderately competitive term (studentcomputers is one such term that springs to mind), however for everyone of these keyword laden SEO-targeted pages, there are a number of other well structured and well thought out campaigns that comensate for this (I used the Monarch SEO campaign as well as a couple of our own - Escapes2 for example). However as Andrew states:
“Proper SEO (okay; let’s use the word ‘ethical SEO’) is about ensuring the search engine can see what your site is about. In fact, proper SEO includes basic tips like ensure web page content has an unique URL so communities and forums can link to it (as opposed to an Ajax style or single Flash URL which is used to display all the content). It tends to be the horrid combination of search spam and poor websites which result in Google searchers clicking themselves into a worthless experience.”
However it is Andrews response to Sean Warwicks comments regarding high keyword density pages that I think are absolutely spot on, and I can only aplaud his response
“And lastly, let me respectfully (and pleadingly) reiterate one key point: The fact that you *can* find sites that rank well for a particular keyword engaging in “keyword stuffing” is NOT evidence that such keyword stuffing is an effective SEO tool. I can also show you many sites that use the letter “Q” exactly three times that also rank well. And no, this is not an indication of a secret “jump the ‘q’ rule.”
SEO has come a long long way in 2007, moving from ‘Black Art’ to mainstream marketing with organisations such as Bigmouth, Latitude and JustSearch catapulting SEO into the mainstream. We still have a way to go, however it is the education of people such as David and Sean that will continue to see Online Marketing and Search marketing in particular continue to develop in the long term
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December 16th, 2007
We as search marketeers, are all looking for the next big thing.
All I am going to say on this briefest of brief posts, is go to Makemylogobigger to find out more. Sheer genius!!
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November 5th, 2007
The NMA always provokes an interesting number of points, and the 11.10.07 edition was no different. One article in particular stood out, that about Pricerunner dropping The Search Works in favour of bringing the campaign in-house. The article itself was no great shakes, however it was a quote by Mattias Berg (from Pricerunner) that particularly grabbed my attention
“When bringing The Search Works on board in June 2006, we were hoping for an increase in performance, but we didn’t get that” he said. “The plan was to grow the campaign with an increase in ROI. But what we’ve seen is an increase in spend but not the same in ROI”.
Now I would like to add, we are in no way affiliated with either parties mentioned above, however I would suggest that Mattias Berg’s comment is a comment that is often repeated. Whilst I do not doubt The Search Works experience, nor the level of work in deploying the above campaign, however one thing I would suggest - is that when a campaign is judged on ROI, little is done from a website perspective in order to maximise the ROI, instead relying on the quality of the leads to provide the increase in ROI.
I am not saying this is the case with Pricerunner/The Search Works, however I personally have worked on a number of ‘above, below and online projects’ where the primary aim was to drive traffic and convert online, however whilst full detail has been provided to the planning, buying and deployment of the marketing material, little attention was given to the actual conversion of the customer, whether it be targeted landing pages (for both online/offline), conversion analysis or refinement of the conversion process (companies wanting too much information via initial content - KISS always works best in my opinion).
As such, as customer journeys are not monitored, fallout points not picked up and conversions not analysed (apart from the ROI analysis that many organisations perform as standards), the campaign continues to underdeliver, despite more resource being thrown at it.
At the end of the day I would suggest, the deployment and physical structure of many search campaigns, is eventually going to look fairly similar, and it is therefore the closing of the loop from a conversion perspective that is ultimately going to result in the required increases in ROI.
This is a point that I feel is often missed, and one that can ultimately cost far more (in terms of missed opportunities in the long run than doing the job properly in the first place. E-Gain in particular have always placed significant focus on the campaign from start to finish (and is one that has paid dividends for us and our clients).
Whilst I agree, SEM is always going to be about lead generation, however as search engine marketing /internet marketing agencies move towards a more ROI/conversion based results structure, then ensuring that a campaign is built to convert is going to be more and more important.
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October 26th, 2007
The IAB has today launched an updated version of the IAB search marketing charter, following months of collaboration between the IAB, Search Marketing Council and the Direct Marketing Association. The new charter sees a new section dedicated to working with affiliates.
Taken from the charter the new affiliates section include:
- SEMCo will declare to the client if they carry out affiliate work on an account that they manage.
- SEMCo will encourage / facilitate client and affiliate communication.
- To ensure affiliates keep SEM messaging on brand a SEMCo must be proactive in driving communications between the client and affiliate.
- SEMCo and client must provide a clear dispute procedure.
- To create a clear process for affiliates to dispute a declined earned commission.
- To ensure a timely process for communicating any changes to ‘keyword policy’ between all parties.
- To facilitate better working relationships between affiliates, SEMCo’s and ultimately, the client.
- SEMCo must publish a point of contact for their affiliate manager.
- Affiliate manager must provide SEMCo with landing page documents to include HTML and appropriate graphics and Flash files.
- To ensure that a SEMCo understands the structure of a landing page to fully optimise a campaign.
Search marketing companies that adhere to the charter can highlight their compliance with an IAB ‘best practise’ icon published on their website and/or additional promotional company infrastructure.
The further development of the charter appears to be another major step in the right direction. As we have discussed on here previously, surely the development of such best practise exercises can only be good for Search Marketing as a whole, but from a business perspective, given that on the whole the only thing that holds many clients back from either further expansion only is perception of online in comparison to other ATL and BTL activity.
PS - SEMCo = Search Engine Marketing Company
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October 17th, 2007
If a report by complete.com is to be believed then yes. According to the report, Yahoo is the best search engine for getting users to click on their search engine results (at least for the period May to August 2007).
The figures are compiled by complete.com, which collates data from a number of ISP’s as well as some other proprietary methods of data collection. The report went on to say
“…Lower search fulfillment numbers mean that on a percentage basis fewer search queries on that engine resulted in the searcher clicking on a result link. So from this perspective one might consider Yahoo! more effective at getting consumers the results they want….”
This to a certain degree backed up a recent Websidestory report that Yahoo was indeed the most convertable search engine, however I think one has to further explore why this is
- Volume - Google in many Western European countries is the search engine of choice - in particular the UK and the USA. For this reason it receives substantially more click throughs than any other search engine, and thus is more succeptable to dilution in figures.
- Competition - Whist this varies significantly by sector, Google often has significantly more competitors in terms of rival advertisers. More competition means more choice, and thus you have to pull out all the stops in order to maximise the effectiveness of your ads, and maximise your SEO in order to raise visibility on the search engines. This would obviously be more applicable to paid search management
- Search Network - I am presuming this does not include any non-search network traffic. I have personally found Yahoo’s paid search matching to be somewhat ‘iffy’ when it comes to their search partners, with the majority of clicks on high traffic/high profit terms coming from third parties rather than the search engine results themselves
- Bounce rate - as above - what was the bounce rate from these referrals. Referrals are one thing - accountability is another
I would love to find out more about how this data has been collated for one and just howfar the research went. Ultimately what the reasons were for ’satisfaction’.
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October 1st, 2007
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