Labels: bango, Mobile Analytics

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“The Beijing Olympics marked the coming of age for the Internet in China,” said Alex Yoder, CEO of WebTrends, a leading provider of web analytics and online marketing solutions. “CCTV.com attracted more than 100 million online visitors for the Olympic Games by providing the right content at the right time for a large and ever-growing online audience.”

• An increase of more than 2.5 minutes in the average time each visitor remained on CCTV.com, to nearly 11.5 minutes during the Olympics.
• The opening ceremonies and other activities on Aug. 8 generated the most traffic on any single day, nearly 8.5 million visits. Aug. 9 and Aug. 18, the day Chinese athlete Liu Xiang was scheduled to race in the 110 meter hurdles, attracted the second and third highest visitor counts, respectively.
• The busiest hour of online traffic was from 11 a.m. to noon on Aug. 18. Nearly 900,000 visits were tallied during the hour in which Xiang was scheduled to race. The second busiest hour was during the opening ceremonies.

Labels: Web Analytics, WebTrends

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BooRah is a restaurant search site that employs NLP to extract sentiment from the wide swath of online reviews across the Internet, bringing to you the bad (“Boo”) and good (“Rah”) aspects of a restaurant.

The BooRah platform uses patent-pending Natural Language Processing technology to generate quantitative scores for domain specific attributes from plain English text, automatic summaries from most relevant user sentiments and enables a highly customizable search based on personal preferences. This technology can be extended way beyond restaurants and will revolutionize the concept of business and service search.

Review coverage & Ratings:

BooRah aggregates reviews form a wide variety of sources – blogs, local newspapers, consumer review sites, and professional critics. Each review is semantically analyzed and sentiment references to food (specific dishes, taste, presentation), service, and ambiance are collected. Such type of content analysis helps consumers customize their searches and provides relevant results for long tail queries. E.g when you search for good “Pad Thai in San Francisco”, the system essentially gives you a list of restaurants with the most number of positive references for "Pad Thai", not just keyword matches for “pad thai”.

Here are a few other examples of long tail queries that rank highly in top search engines: best foie gras San Francisco, best calamari Palo Alto, best deep dish pizza in Chicago. Such content pages not only rank highly in major search engines, they can also be used to enhance their organic search results. For instance, BooRah's award winning SearchMonkey application enhances organic restaurant search results on Yahoo. With BooRah's SearchMonkey application added to your profile, you will notice an enhanced result for boorah.com links within Yahoo search results. Here are a couple of examples:





BooRah also offers a browser search plugin to make restaurant search even easier. Simply install our plugin and turn your browser into a restaurant search engine.

Accurate ratings for food, service, ambiance and concise representative summaries also enable an optimized mobile browsing experience. Mobile users can simply browse to BooRah.com to experience our simple, yet very effective mobile optimized site.



SMS search: Text “boorah your search term” to 4INFO (44636) to receive results via SMS E.g.: "boorah pho mountain view"

Utility links

We have aggregated hundreds of thousands of useful links so you don’t have to go looking for restaurant discounts, online reservations, or menus. See for yourself: reservations in Palo Alto, discounts in New York, online menus in Los Angeles

Happy Searching!

Labels: Local Search

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• SAP has also begun promoting the "Web 2.0" features of its portal, but remains substantially behind its competitors in this regard.
• The ranks of commercial portal vendors have shrunk, with Broadvision, ATG, PeopleSoft, and CA having exited the portal marketplace. Longtime vendor Vignette is increasingly bundling its portal offering with its other content management tools in a broader package.

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In this case, the difference in user interaction is so clear and marked we could tell extremely quickly which one worked better: the difference is in the thickness of the plus box next to the stock quote. Now, coming to the conclusion that one is "better" is tricky, and there's many a possible slip on the way there. Does more interaction with the plus box mean that it is better? How about if users then miss good results because they are distracted by the more prominent plus box? If we've done our job right, almost without your noticing, things will work just that little bit better for you.

Labels: Google

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“The USA share of the browsing market has grown as an increasing number of phones come with bigger screens and service contracts that include unlimited Internet access,” said Adam Kerr, VP of Bango North America at Bango. “We fully expect the US will overtake the UK in this ranking as early as this month.”

“We predicted 2008 would be a pivotal year for the mobile web in the US, and our data is backing that up. Clearly the rate of growth and acceleration is getting faster in the US and around the world,” continued Kerr.

Labels: bango, Mobile Analytics, Mobile Marketing

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Are you considering blogging as a hobby or part time/full time professional career and aren't sure whether or not to add Blogger to your shortlist of blogging platforms? Well, I suggest you take a look at a recently published booked by Lee Jordan titled, "Blogger: Beyond the Basics." Jordan touches on every aspect of Blogger including customized templates, integrating RSS/Social bookmarking, working with your blog's HTML code, linking and adding widgets. In addition to the step by step by examples mentioned in all the chapters, the book comes with a CD so you can easily try out the examples on your own blog.

Blogger: Beyond the Basics, actually starts out by discussing how you can leverage blogs and how to predefine the goals for your blog - which really helps ads some focus before you dive in head first. Coming from a search marketing background, I really appreciated how Jordan took this book to the next level and clearly explained how to apply search engine optimization strategies to improve the performance of your blog and how to use Google Analytics to measure all aspects of your blog. Get your copy of the book here.

I got an opportunity to catch up with the author, Lee Jordan, to get her thoughts on why she wrote the book, who the book is targeted towards, and the benefits of using Blogger.

[Manoj]: What was the inspiration behind writing "Blogger - Beyond the Basics"

[Lee Jordan]: I fell into writing this book. Dave, the acquisitions editor at Packt asked what I thought about an advanced book about Blogger. After looking around I realized it had been about a year (a long time in blogging years) since a book covering advanced topics for Blogger had come out. There had been so many changes too. Blogger had moved to a "new" XML based template structure and was rapidly adding new social media features. I subscribe to the Blogger help list on Google Groups and saw many frustrated people having problems with the same topics over and over. It was a great opportunity to give back to the blogging community and learn more myself.

[Manoj]: Who is the book targeted towards?

[Lee Jordan]: The book is targeted towards people who already know the basics of blogging with Blogger and are now ready to do more advanced work on their blog. Popular advanced topics include transforming a basic template into the three column one, adding custom colors and graphics to the template, adding customized modules, and search engine optimization.

[Manoj]: Is Blogger a legitimate platform for people to use for business?

[Lee Jordan]: You do not have to be a programmer or a web designer to use Blogger successfully. Features include multiple users, customizable templates, podcast and videocast support, and an easy to use administration area.Blogger has a custom domain feature which allows well known corporations such as GirlScouts.org to host the backend of their blog on Blogger and customize it to match the rest of their site. The integration of Blogger with Feedburner, Google Analytics, and YouTube means a business can quickly set up a social media blog. The developers of Blogger are constantly working on improvements and new features. Add in the vibrant help community on Google Groups and you have an active support system for businesses and entrepreneurs who blog.

[Manoj]: How does Blogger compare against other platforms such as WordPress/Typepad

[Lee Jordan]: All three make it easy to post. The real differences come with features, administration, and templates. Blogger is best for those who want someone else to deal with keeping the blog software updated and are looking for an inexpensive way to start blogging. Wordpress and Typepad are better for people who have a technical resource or the time to keep up with software patches.

Blogger does not come with a wide range of templates for businesses that can be customized, but makes it very easy to manage modules and other features. The Wordpress interface has an extensive number of templates, but managing the blog requires multiple administration dashboards, some hidden where the beginner would have difficulty finding them. It also does not give hosted users the option to use a rich text editor for text modules. Typepad has great commenting features, but I haven't seen many new things happening with it feature wise.

[Manoj]: The biggest advantages Blogger has is ease of administration and flexibility. Another advantage is Blogger blogs are free. You can easily add modules and do not have to pay additional fees to edit the CSS or perform other customizations. Wordpress users who want to customize or add modules are better off downloading a copy of the Wordpress platform and hosting it themselves to avoid paying for the right to edit the CSS files or install modules. This will require paying for a domain name and a hosting provider, but it may cost less in the long run.

[Manoj]: If you could pick out 3 or 4 main objectives or lessons readers should get from this book, what should they be?

[Lee Jordan]:

1. Create a "mission statement" - Plan the focus of your blog to guide you when making decisions about how it looks, content, and interactivity.
2. Generate useful content focused on visitors - Don't be afraid to "go deep" on a particular feature or process. Blogs are a great medium for creating a library of information over time.
3. Set a schedule for posting and updates and keep to it. Consistency over time is crucial in establishing a fan base and maintaining a track record of content with search engines
4. Optimize your blog for search engines using "White hat" techniques and visit the search engine guides of Google and other major search engines regularly for changes

[Manoj]: How has blogger grown and developed as a platform in the last 2-3 years.

[Lee Jordan]: Originally Blogger lacked many of the features such as linkbacks that users of WordPress and Typepad took for granted. It was a basic blogging platform for beginners. It has matured into a rich and robust platform with many options and tools for bloggers of every level, from beginner to expert. The greatest changes have happened over the last year, with more features added than can be listed here.

Labels: Blogger, Blogging, SEO

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1. Consumer behavior has shifted: 74% of consumers now search for local businesses and services online
2. The local business owner knows he needs to be online, but does not know where to begin
3. This consumer pull through and pent up demand from local advertisers is the biggest driver of our growth. But there are many players in our market and we are not aware of any growing as fast as Yodle. Hiring world class experts like Mike Deluca from Hot Jobs and Paolo and Rick gives Yodle the excellence in execution to capture this opportunity.

Labels: Yodle

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(Guest Post)

Day 3 of SES San Jose is always an interesting day. It’s the day of Google Dance hangovers and beach trips. However, the highlight of my day was “Ads in a Quality Score World"


Moderator: Dana Todd, CMO, Newsforce

Speakers:

• Brad Geddes, Founder, bgTheory.com
• Ron Jones, Search Engine Watch Expert & President/CEO, Symetri Internet Marketing
• Kendall Allen, Former Managing Director, Incognito Digital, Digital Marketing and Convergence Media Consultant
• Misty Locke, President & Co-founder, Range Online Media

Dana Todd moderated the session and made a point that each panelist was instructed to give at least one hot tip. That was refreshing to hear, because often panelists are too theoretical without giving practical advice.

Although technical difficulties delayed us about 10 minutes, Ron Jones started us off with some basic notes and a history of the Quality Score.

Ron Jones

• What is a Quality Score?
• Not Bid to Position
• Quality Score is a dynamic value assigned to each keyword
• Quality Score Influences ad position and determines CPC
• Google Introduced Quality Score in 2005, revised in 2007
• Factors that determine Quality Score
• Historical CTR
• Relevance with Ad
• CTR History – with all keywords
• Landing Page
• Solutions:
• Split AdGroups to 20 -30 keywords. If it’s more then that it’s not granular enough
• Test thoroughly
• Delete low / poor ratings
• Too many people are focused on bid management and not on quality score
• Hot Tip: Testing is essential

• Why is Quality Score Important?
• Ad Rank = Keyword Quality Score X Max CPC
• Save money by adjusting score
• Quality Score Factors Chart
• Account Organization is Key
• Dynamic Keyword Insertion should not be a crutch
• Hot Tip – Run a keyword bid that shows min bids

• “How to Manage the Madness”
• Quality Score goes back to the fundamental of paid search
  
• 5 basic Steps
• Keyword Building - Flush out all the “right” keywords
• Organization & Structure - Yahoo has a 10,000 AdGroup limit per Campaign – If you haven’t reached that, then you are not granular enough.
• Match Types - Every keyword should have every match type & Break Match types into unique AdGroups
• Creative - Keyword Insertion should NOT be needed
• Landing Pages
  

Labels: john ellis, San Jose, Search Engine Strategies, SES

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• Experiment Pruning: This new feature allows you to disable one or more combinations from taking part in your Website Optimizer experiments. Pruning can help you achieve faster, more meaningful results by allowing you to remove poorly performing or illogical combinations. This is especially helpful in cases where your experiment may have too many combinations relative to the amount of traffic it receives.

In the past, there wasn't an easy way for you to disable low performing or
illogical combinations. You'd have to stop a test, make a copy, lose all your test data, and then launch a new test. That's all changing starting today. Now, you can simply select any number of page variations from your experiment report, click our new "Disable" button, and you're done. Easy as that. All your future traffic will be sent to your remaining page variations, and you'll be on the path to quicker, more actionable test results

• A/B Offline Validation: If your test or goal pages aren't accessible to Website Optimizer then no worries. You'll now be able to just upload a copy of your tagged page and Website Optimizer will make sure that everything is tagged properly.
• More Intuitive Reporting: We've enhanced our reports to more clearly show how your combinations are performing, and to better indicate when we've found one or more high-confidence winning combinations. This will help prevent you from drawing false conclusions from results or from ending experiments prematurely.
  

Labels: Google, Web Analytics

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Labels: Search Engine Strategies, SES

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Earlier this week the Board of Directors of WebTrends Inc. announced the appointment of Alex Yoder as the company's new president and chief executive officer following the resignation of Dan Stickel. I had a chance to catch up with the new WebTrends CEO to ask him about how he plans to lead WebTrends going forward.

[Manoj]: You have been a long time employee of WebTrends, how will this help you in providing strategic direction for the company going forward.

[Alex Yoder]: I have spent 7 of the last 8 years of my life focused on the success of WebTrends and its customers. I have personal relationships with all of our largest customers and have been responsible for the acquisition and retention of many of those same clients through past periods of struggle and imbalance. I have managed and grown our largest partnerships and helped to evangelize the needs of those organizations and their customers throughout our product, marketing, services, support and hosted operations groups. Also, having come from the inside of WebTrends, I literally know every employee in the company. I have built a reputation for clear, open and honest communication, without fluff, or ego, with the central focus consistently centered on the success of our customers and the integrity and pride of our employees. We have a solid strategy and direction. My goal is simply to enable our success and to drive the organization through clarity, simplicity and passion.

[Manoj]: What has changed most in the web analytics space in the last few years?

[Alex Yoder]: What I’ve seen change most in the web analytics space is the sincere evolution of the digital marketer in terms of their sophistication and need for truly relevant data for their organization. Gone are the days when 1,000 generic out of the box reports work effectively. We are seeing very sophisticated analysts use this data for real business decisions. There was a time when sophistication was confused with difficult and simple was confused with generic. Sophistication is required today. The ability to easily create highly customizable views of the data is required without needing to indulge development in a tag change with every step. Also, more and more the data itself is required. Marketing and BI are gradually coming together and there is an absolute requirement that the underlying data itself be easily available to put into real-life scorecards and benchmarks, and to feed other systems, such as CRM and email. This function is simply not available in broad-based, mass market solutions.

[Manoj]: Why are components such as Ad Director important in WebTrends' offering?

[Alex Yoder]: The fact that WebTrends is involved in client organizations at a strategic level already is only the first step. We also need to be able to continue to provide value to our customers through actionable, results-oriented technology so that we can maintain our edge as the leading provider in marketing optimization solutions. Remember that, while we have a rich heritage in web analytics, we are truly a marketing optimization company. The plain fact is, there is no other solution anywhere in the marketplace that compares to Ad Director, where an organization can automatically optimize as well as leverage human insight—it is simply unparalleled. Ad Director is not only a keyword optimization solution, but also an ad-serving and retargeting platform, which allows us to evolve our story about closed-loop marketing. We intend to continue to deliver solutions of this magnitude to our client base.

[Manoj]: How do you plan on keeping WebTrends innovative, with so many different products, you don't just compete with analytics providers anymore.

[Alex Yoder]: Thanks! I’m happy to hear you say that (based on my last response). We really don’t want to compete solely with analytics providers any more. There are many mass-market web analytics solutions that are highly inflexible and provide very shallow insight into the underlying business questions—there is not a huge future in that arena. Frankly, why would you pay for it if you can get it free from Google? We are definitively not one of these solutions. There are areas that we can provide significant value-add that include the underlying analytics framework, but ultimately solve much broader challenges for the digital marketer by identifying unique individuals and providing a framework for remarketing. We believe in scoring visitors and measuring engagement dynamically, as well as enabling the closing of the online and offline loop.

[Manoj]: How will you incorporate your experience from Touch Clarity into how you will direct WebTrends

[Alex Yoder]: Well, I will make sure that we don’t leap before we look in terms of acquisitions! Frankly, much of the underlying approach behind Ad Director is very similar to that of Touch Clarity. The focus is around automated optimization, so I have a clear understanding of that space and how it complements the appropriate analytics solution.

[Manoj]: Mobile Analytics seems to be a popular topic these days, is this something WebTrends will begin looking into?

[Alex Yoder]: ABSOLUTELY!!! We are very focused in this area already and have been engineering solutions that will enable easier tracking of activity on mobile devices—taking us well beyond the comprehensive mobile reporting that we already do. We will be announcing enhanced capabilities in this arena shortly.

Labels: Web Analytics, WebTrends

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• Why is “2.0” such a challenge?
• The way content is created and distributed is much different than the traditional way
• Consumers have a choice. They can customize content the way they want and receive the information the way they want

• “You can not use one set of pliers to build a house”
• One tool can not do all. Multiple measurement tools and benchmarks are necessary to tell the complete story

• In the Social Media world, feed subscribers is more important than unique visits

• Fake Page Views – Pollutes data with unreliable data

• Web Metrics moves from “Reporting” to “Hearts and Minds” which leads to “Predictive Buying”
• In SEM, focus on keywords that bring in profits, not traffic, not conversion.
• It’s all about the profit margin
• Page Views – it’s not the goal of the consumer, so it shouldn’t be your measurement.

• “Captain Kirk is an analytics genius and pioneer”
• 3 C’s of measurement: Context, Comparative, Contrast
• Statistics should tell the story of the people (the visitors)
• Segment the Segment: Break apart the Social Media traffic
  

• Web 2.0 is not that much different. It’s about empowering people
• We often drive people to sites without giving them something to do
• The best way to approach analytics is to start with a question then look for answers

Labels: john ellis, San Jose, Search Engine Strategies, SES

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Day 1 at SES San Jose. I'm here as part of SEO-PR's crew, interviewing speakers for the SES Conference Youtube Channel.

How much Search is enough? Aaron Goldman of Resolution Media, Steven Kaufman of Digitas, Robert Murray of iProspect and Bob Tripathi of Discover Financial Services were posed that very question by SES's own, Kevin Ryan. While television is still the dominant media, search is making it's way up, currently at 12%, according to Bob Tripathi. Bob described search's impact with such examples as ad creative supporting TV, Brand building ads, Landing pages supporting a television ad, and a microsite supporting the TV spot. Search marketing has grown by more than 100% in over two years. Ultimately, search is where people go and find things, chimed in, Steven Kaufman. Steven mentioned that brands are getting savvier to the fact that their content is going to live in a lot more places than just on TV.

But Kevin kept coming back to the motherload of questions. Where is the money for Search going to come from? According to Aaron Goldman, one of the things that we need to recognize is that paid search is different than natural search. The budget for natural search isn't usually marketing money. It's IT money, Web site development money. Goldman said we're starting to see that budget come from the creative side now.

Anne Kennedy (Beyond Ink) who helped moderate the roundtable, said that the money for search starts by using measurement. Search is the one medium that's truly accountable and trackable. According to Aaron, search is now being used to justify traditional media budgets. We're matching up query volume to TV broadcast. When something goes national we can see the search spike and that way we're able to show the value in TV advertising. That accountability wasn't there before.

Top session tips and takeaways:

Steven: Tip one: Recognize the outcome that you're hoping to achieve and measure everything that you're doing.

Robert: Recognize the difference between demand capture and demand generation, know your customer's lifetime value and build in a test budget.

Bob: Educate your organizations. Maximize your spend, and figure out how you can take it further on the web

Aaron: Be open and be fluid with your budget allocation. Don't just stick it one place and leave it there. From the consumer standpoint it's all fluid so you have to mirror that with your budgets too.

Kevin: For a lot of people search is the only advertising they do. They don't have money for TV, they don't have money for the rest of this.

Labels: Search Engine Strategies, SES

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(Guest Post)

My first session at Search Engine Strategies San Jose 08: Search Around the World Part 1: Asia/Pacific & Latin America . Below are my notes from the session. Keep in mind, these are only my notes, these are not exact quotes from any of the speakers, it’s only my interpretation of what was said.

Moderator: Anne Kennedy, Managing Partner & Founder, Beyond Ink

Speakers:

• T.R. Harrington, Director of Strategic Direction & Product Development, Darwin Marketing
• Motoko Hunt, Founder, Japanese Search Marketing Strategist, AJPR LLC
• Alicia Morga, CEO, Consorte Media

China

The session started with T. R Harrington. He discussed the China search market. Below are a few of the highlighted bullet points from Harrington’s presentation

China Search Market:

• 254 million users in China July 08, the largest number of users in the world
• Fewer choices in other mediums, like TV. Because of this users are more engaged in the online conversation.
• There is a very little presence of analytics companies in China. Partly because companies are still hesitant to pay for this service, plus many are still not sure what to measure.
• Cost per Click is still the major measurement, understanding conversion and measurement has not reached the China market yet.
• Taiwan and Honk Kong are totally different markets then “mainland” China. All Chinese speaking areas can not be grouped together. Different tactics and strategies are needed.
• Domains with a .CN extension are considered more reputable and give more weight.

• Claims the largest and most active BBS Community
• Baidu is not like Google
• Has 71% Market Share (Google has 23%)
• Pushing the ads to right side, like Google. Historically, they have been at top, this pushing organic listings down
• Introduces 14.5 products a year
• Wants to be the Wikipedia and Ebay of China, as well as search
• Provides no CTR% for Paid Search advertisers
• Faster CPC price increases (as much as 70% from Jan to May)
• Traffic estimations tools in China are unreliable in China

• Omniture Aalytics is present in Japan. Google Analytics is also present. However, larger companies seem to outsource analytics.
• Google and Yahoo splits the market share about 50% a piece
• Mobile marketing is hot
• Many online ads include search boxes, with keyword suggestions. This persuades the users to use the suggestive keywords, which have a lower CPC. Very effective
• Keyword Research and translation is a unique challenge. Multiple character sets and translations are needed to capture all traffic.
• Shopping/Ecommerce is huge
• Payment options – Credit Cards, Mobile accounts, wire transfer
• Japanese prefer Points over coupons

1. Localize – don’t just translate
2. Extensive keyword research
3. Adapt to what works in Japan

South America

Alicia Morga, CEO of Consorte Media talked about the Latin America market

• US/Hispanic Market – 60% of internet access
• Spend 9% more then non-Hispanics
• Best Buy was instantly indexed after creating a translated site. Traffic increased but site wasn’t ready for consumers.
• English credit card processing is considered more “legitimate” in shopping sites. Although, that seems to be changing now.
• Banner campaigns do well, consumers are not as jaded as US Consumers.
• Mobile advertising does well
  

Summary: The session had a consistent message: Translation software doesn’t work. Localize not translate. If businesses are really serious about having an international presence they need to have content translated by a human editors. It’s difficult to find translators that understand online marketing, especially SEM. Therefore, extensive testing is necessary to make sure the right words are target for optimization.

** John Ellis is the Senior Online Marketing Manager for ResortQuest Vacation Rentals

Labels: john ellis, San Jose, Search Engine Strategies, SES

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“Search engine marketing is one of the most critical acquisition channels for many companies, but it is clear that a significant portion of these investments are being wasted or underutilized,” said Kevin Ryan, vice president and global content director of Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch. “As search marketing becomes even more competitive, marketers would be smart to investigate automated methods for increasing SEM returns.”

“We have customers that are realizing over 1,500 percent return on ad spend after switching from their old bid management tools,” said Alex Yoder, WebTrends CEO. “But more importantly, all WebTrends Ad Director customers have seen substantial gains over bid management, while reducing the manual overhead associated with these outdated solutions. With WebTrends Ad Director, we have struck the optimal balance between what machines can do best— repetitive analysis, testing and updates on a massive scale—and the insight and perspective humans bring to search marketing decisions.”

“We were able to achieve a much higher conversion rate and broader coverage of the online space while reducing staff hours dedicated to search campaign management by 50 percent,” said Alicia Albo, PsPrint (http://www.psprint.com/).

Labels: Search Engine Strategies, SES, Web Analytics, WebTrends

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Over at the Ask Enquiro blog, Senior Sponsored Search Strategist, Kyle Grant has put together a great 4 part series on PPC Best Practices. Kyle starts with the basics of PPC and progresses to advanced topics such as testing, how to use quality score and the importance proper messaging. Below I have captured the topics from each of the Enquiro articles but be sure to check out the entire four part series here.

• Stop Thinking PPC, Start Thinking Consumer-Initiated Marketing
• Start with the End in Mind

Part 2 Topics:

• Plan to Measure; then Measure the Plan
• K.I.S.S Rule Applied to Conversion Path Optimization

Part 3 Topics:

• Don’t Guess… Test
• Don’t Get Punished for Bad Behavior
• Get Vertical

Part 4 Topics:

• Speak Their Language
• Quality Score Is an Indicator, Not a Destination

Labels: ppc

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• There’s a new look for the Blogger Dashboard, which we think you’ll find more attractive and functional. If you have a ton of blogs (as we do) try out the “hide” and “show all” links to help manage the list.
• Google Gadgets in your Layouts blog can now set their height automatically (if the gadget author supports it). Read more about adding Google Gadgets to your blog.
• AdSense page elements can now optionally have image ads. They’ve found image ads have a higher click-through rate, so you might get more money if you turn them on.
• They wrote up a Features page to help you keep track of everything you can do with Blogger.
• The Flag Blog button in the Blogger navbar now pops up a window for you to tell us why you think the blog violates our terms of service. Flag Blog is always handled exclusively by human reviewers, not the automated spam locking system, so this information will better help them decide what, if any, action should be taken.

Labels: Blogger, Blogging

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"We're proud to report the best quarter in the history of WebTrends, with bookings even higher than our record revenues, adding to our software-as-a-service subscription base," said Dan Stickel, WebTrends CEO. "Our record quarter and the increased demand for our solution is a direct result of shipping substantive products that satisfy real needs, investing in customer support and services to ensure our clients' success, and focusing on product innovation in strategic growth areas," said Stickel.

"WebTrends has moved beyond simplistic solutions that skim the surface," said Alex Yoder, VP of sales, North America. "Those products are great for the mass market, but we're focused on delivering a customized marketing solution to our enterprise customers that they can't get from the countless out-of-the-box reports that other analytics providers offer."

Labels: Web Analytics, WebTrends

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• Which fields take the longest to complete
• Which fields are left blank and may be superfluous
• How often errors occur that force visitors to refill a field

Allaedin Ezzedin over at the Ambient/Transparent blog wrote an excellent post yesterday in which he explains how to use JavaScript and Google Analytics to create a home grown solution to help in the optimization of forms.

In his post, Allaedin takes you through how to code for Form Validation, how to handle Form Submissions, how to send variables to Google Analytics and how to create a custom profile to track only the form related page views.

Labels: Google Analytics, Web Analytics

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• B-to-B Lead Generation Handbook
• 2008 Landing Page Handbook
• 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide
• 2008 The Online Advertising Handbook + Benchmarks
• 2008 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide (only 12 copies left)

Labels: marketing sherpa

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Labels: VisiStat, Web Analytics

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Labels: Google, MSN, Yahoo

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Google Translate for iPhone is optimized for speed, supports all of the existing Google Translate language pairs, and uses a client-side data-store on your iPhone to hang on to your past translations so you always have them at hand, even if you can't use the local data network. We wrote this using the AJAX Language API, so every time the Google Translate team updates the languages they support, the languages will automatically be added here.

Labels: Google, Mobile Marketing

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Labels: Web Analytics

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WebGuild Silcon Valley will be organizing a great event on August 13th, titled: Web Analytics: Measuring Engagement In The Social Media Revolution. This event will focus on measuring user engagement on and off your web site. Learn from the experts about this cutting-edge topic and how it affects your business and how your business can be part of the conversation.

Register Now

Location: The Cabana Hotel, 4290 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94306

Speakers will feature:

Carla Bourque, VP Media & Entertainment, Nielsen Online: Carla Bourque, VP of Media & Entertainment, is responsible for sales and client service for the BuzzMetrics division of Nielsen Online. Ms. Bourque has over 15 years of experience in sales and business development for technology and market research based companies, and has had leadership roles at multiple successful startups.

John Squire, Chief Strategy Officer, Coremetrics: John Squire joined Coremetrics in 2001, and is responsible for both the development and management of Coremetrics Search Marketing Services and the setting the company’s vision of the market and technical strategy for Coremetrics Behavioral Analytics and Precision Marketing solutions

Labels: Web Analytics

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I have learned from previous Search Engine Strategies San Jose conferences that it’s best to have a plan of action. I go in with a set of goals or questions, and then I determine what sessions will help me answer those questions.

I have put together my agenda for the week. I hope to catch up with familiar faces at SES San Jose this year. If I don’t find you, below is where you can find me.

Day 1 - Monday, August 18

9:45am-11:00am - Search Around the World - Part 1: Asia/Pacific & Latin America
11:15am-12:30pm - Pay Per Conversation
1:30pm-2:30pm - Orion Keynote Panel - How Much Search is Enough?
2:45pm-4:00pm - Search Around the World - Part 2: The UK & Europe
4:30pm-5:30pm - Opening Keynote Presentation: Lee Siegel

Day 2 - Tuesday, August 19

10:00am-11:00am - Expo Hall Grand Opening
11:00am-12:15pm - Measuring Success in a 2.0 World
1:30pm-2:30pm - Orion Keynote Panel: Technical & Information Giants
2:45pm-3:45pm - Sponsored Session (Microsoft) Diagnose SEO Issues Using Live Search Webmaster Tools
4:00pm-5:15pm - Identify, Analyze, Act: SEM by the Numbers
5:15pm-6:30pm – SureHits - Networking Cocktail Reception
7:00pm-11:00pm - Google Dance - Glow in the Dark!

Day 3 - Wednesday, August 20

9:00am-10:00am - Keynote Roundtable: Why Does Search Get the Credit for Everything?
10:30am-11:45am - Ads in a Quality Score World
1:00pm-2:15pm - Link Building Basics
2:45pm-4:00pm - Keywords & Content: Search Marketing Foundations
4:15pm-5:30pm - Facebook, Feeds and Micro-Blogging
7:15pm-11:00pm – WebmasterRadio.FM Search Bash

Day 4 - Thursday, August 21

9:00am-10:00am - Morning Keynote: Chip Heath
10:15am-11:15am - The Business Case for SEO Content Development: Turning Words Into Action!
11:30am-12:30pm - Trademark Issues: What SEMs Should Know
1:30pm-2:30pm - Post-Click Marketing: Converting Search Engine Traffic

Labels: john ellis, San Jose, Search Engine Strategies, SES

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Expedia, Inc. is the world’s leading online travel company, empowering business and leisure travelers with the tools and information they need to easily research, plan, book and experience travel. Expedia, Inc. also provides in-destination concierge service and activity desks for travelers. The Expedia, Inc. portfolio of brands includes: Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Expedia Corporate Travel, TripAdvisor, Expedia Local Expert, Classic Vacations and ELong. Expedia, Inc.’s companies operate more than 50 global points of sale with sites in North America, South America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. Expedia, Inc. is a component of the S&P 500 index. For more information, visit http://www.expediainc.com/ (NASDAQ: EXPE).

WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU? WE'RE GLAD YOU ASKED!

At Expedia, growing in your career is more than a possibility - it’s a reality. You’ll find a variety of training programs here and new products to really get your wheels spinning. Our enthusiasm for what we do is our proudest asset. It shows in our products, our well-traveled customers, and the inspired people who work here. We aim to improve everything we touch, and we're very proud of our achievements. Our industry agrees, too. Mornings are the best when you love your job. Expedia is not only reinventing the way you travel, we're creating a new way of working too. It's exciting here! Inspiring even. You can define your own purpose, work with brilliant people, discover some wonderful places - and finally put that snooze button to rest. So come be a part of a dynamic, growing, energetic, passionate company producing world-class creative recognized as the “Best in Travel Web Sites” by the Webby Awards, the “Most Innovative Company” by the American Business Awards (Stevies) and the “Best of the Web” by Forbes.

JOB PURPOSE:

Expedia is the flagship brand of Expedia, Inc., and SEM is one of the key drivers of its performance. To this end, we are currently seeking a Search Engine Marketing Manager to directly own and strategically manage high volume paid search campaigns critical to Expedia.com’s success. In this role, you will manage relationships with search engine account teams and vendors, grow/adapt campaigns to generate incremental revenue, manage large budgets to specific ROI goals, and innovate to produce revolutionary successes.


We are looking for someone who has 1) experience and demonstrated success in directly managing paid search campaigns, OR 2) deep experience and demonstrated success in direct response online marketing.

If you have any recommendations for candidates or are interested in the position please contact Lynne Weston at lweston@expedia.com

Labels: Expedia, SEM Jobs

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Today, we're launching Google Insights for Search, a new product designed with the advertiser in mind. It provides more flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior, and adds some cool new features like a world heat map to graphically display search volume and regional interest.

Labels: Google

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Search Engine Strategies in San Jose this year features a special session focused on Local 2.0, the evolution of Local Search 2.0. Local Search comprises a significant chunk of online visitor engagement which includes online mapping, shopping engines, and directories. I had a chance to catch up with Peter Hutto, Vice President, Business Development and Sales at Local.com to get some insight on his session regarding Local 2.0 at SES San Jose. Read our chat below:

[Manoj]: How important is it for marketers to include local search as a part of their total online strategy?

[Peter Hutto]: There is a local market component for almost all business to business or business to consumer products or services. Today, the vast majority of products or services can be sourced locally – in fact approximately 80% of all goods and services are purchased locally. There is no question that it is extremely important for all marketers to incorporate a local online marketing strategy.

[Manoj]: What percentage of online searches are local?

[Peter Hutto]: This statistic is often debated. When actually trying to determine the percentage of local searches you need to consider both explicit and implicit searches. The explicit searches are when someone actually specifies the “where” in their search. For example, “used cars in Palo Alto” or “shoe repair in Irvine.” However, there are many searches that are implicitly local, when local intent is implied. For example when looking for “plumbers”, “carpet cleaners”, “marriage counseling” and many other products and services, a geography does not need to be specified since these services are implicitly tied to a local geography. Almost all local search platforms will geo-target the IP address and append that to the search query. Therefore when considering the percentage of online searches that are local, you should look at the combined number of both explicit and implicit searches. It is estimated that overall local search accounts for about 20-25 percent of online searches.

[Manoj]: How does a local search engine such as Local.com provide a unique search experience compared to Google/Yahoo Local?

[Peter Hutto]: Google and Yahoo are both broad in their focus and are not entirely focused on local search. Local.com offers a streamlined user interface and provides users with targeted, highly relevant local search results. These results include special offers, user ratings and reviews, local businesses' website links, maps, driving directions, photos and more. Consumers can find all of the information they need on local businesses, products and services in one place.

[Manoj]: What is required to implement a local search strategy at Local.com?

[Peter Hutto]: Just give us a call (888-857-6722) or go to http://www.local.com/ to get started. Our sales team can work directly with local business owners and provide them with search targeting metrics- by geography, keyword and category. Ads on Local.com can be up in one day, often within hours. We also have a client services team who specializes in campaign optimization and keyword build out. Advertising on Local.com is cost effective for local businesses and doesn’t require extensive resources.

[Manoj]: What businesses flourish the most in local search?

[Peter Hutto]: There are 3 interesting segments that are starting to take off. We are seeing solid growth with search in traditional “trade services” categories, which have typically been the domain of the Yellow Page publishers like plumbers, auto repair, etc. We are also seeing an increase in the “professional services” categories like attorneys, accountants, financial consultants, etc. The bigger and typically consumer focused (vs. corporate) firms in these categories have been doing search for a while but there is a strong influx of newer and smaller firms who in the past did very little marketing. Finally almost all new companies are now considering search right out of the gate. The new business owner is very concerned about getting new customers and the majority are seriously considering local search because it is much more effective AND affordable than their traditional advertising channels like the Yellow Pages. The ROI and targeting capabilities of local search are nearly unmatched.

Labels: Local Search, Search Engine Strategies, SES

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Last week, Kent Sugarman of the Google Adsense team helped users understand how to get higher quality and more relevant Google Adsense ads to display within your content:

1. Use text in addition to images when possible. Please note that the crawler can't read text contained within images.
2. If you use images, be sure to title them appropriately and provide descriptive ALT tags.
3. Try imagining your site without pictures or dynamic content. This will give you a good idea of what our crawler reads. If you lack imagination, you can try turning the images off in your web browser.

If your site uses a lot of these features, make sure you provide enough text-based content in one of our supported languages to effectively convey the topic of your site. If our crawler doesn’t find enough text, you may get poorly targeted ads

Labels: Google

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Labels: HBX, Omniture, SiteCatalyst, Web Analytics Implementation

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