eBuzzMaster

Yahoo is going to be running Google AdWords, eh? Reading some of the articles, it sounds as if there is just upside for Yahoo, where they don’t have adequate advertisers on long-tail PPC keywords, Google can fill in. For Yahoo, they will run Google Adwords on those phrases where they don’t have any advertisers. Or is that adequate advertisers to bid up bid prices to where they make a BIIIIG pile of money rather than a BIG pile of money on less frequently searched terms? (follow the Google “broad match” model that says show an ad that may tangentially have ever had anything to do with the searched term - that would fix that problem).

So… Since I buy keywords on both Google and Yahoo - and quite the number on both - which ad will Yahoo show? Let’s say the keywords I am bidding on are “great big blue cars in Idaho” - and I bid on both in Google and Yahoo. If my bid / payment is higher enough in Google to give Yahoo enough incremental funding to show my “big blue” GOOGLE ad instead of my “big blue” YAHOO ad - am I winning as an advertiser? Not so much. And am I likelier to get to my Google max-bid because I’ve got an appropriate Yahoo bid going on that then drives up what I end up paying Google?

How do you budget / manage this?? Here are some ways that may seem to work, but will require testing:

1. Separate the keywords that one bids on for Google and Yahoo. Only bid on tail terms in Yahoo and “head” terms in Google. This way you might only get broad match phrases in Google-Hoo, but are paying the cheaper price for the “tail” terms… Unless Yahoo won’t show anything but Google-Hoo ads on those rather than exact tail term matches, in which case, you are TOTALLY out of luck.
2. Bid only on Google. This is counter-intuitive to a strong Yahoo business model, but, c’mon, we all know that we get better results with Google. Then again, maybe those results will not do as well because they are being shown as Google-Hoo ads…
3. Bid only on Yahoo. It’s less expensive and only gets 12% of the search market, but, in the end… Who cares? You’re not bidding against yourself to get better positioning within your own campaigns. Or are you? Who’s winning on that front?
4. Take your online budget and hand it out as individual dollars to random people on the street, asking them to go to your website.

Let’s see what ends up happening in the long run. The ink is wet on the agreement and Yahoogle hasn’t even launched yet. As for me, I am going to keep an eagle eye on both campaigns to see what happens.

By the way - does this mean that Google will now “own” relevancy on Yahoo paid search results? And how does that work?

Now, do you think we can convince Google to serve Yahoo’s paid inclusion results? Talk about search marketing nirvana….

I attended the GIMA event yesterday evening at Monarch Restaurant in St. Louis, and met some great people! Although based out of Herndon, Virginia, my team is in St. Louis, so I go out there fairly frequently.

There were three panel members who spoke about web analytics. Here’s where my lack of skill with names comes in. A lady from Enterprise Rent-A-Car, the VP of Marketing Science from Charter Communications (isn’t that a very cool job title??), and Mike H. from Omniture spoke. Here were my biggest take-aways:

1. All data from different analytics tools is relative only to itself. There will always be differences between measurement tools for a lot of reasons, and spending time trying to get the numbers to match is completely futile, and wastes precious time that can be spent actually implementing next phases.  
2. When using web analytics, start with one question and answer it. There may be other questions that come up along the way, but only follow those data trails IF they provide better information on the original question.
3. Whether analytics tools are owned by IT or by marketing depends very much on the organization - HOWEVER, implementation must be done cooperatively to assure that everyone’s needs are met.
4. When deciding on a specific tool, it’s important to consider how it will be used to provide return on investment. That can be many incremental improvements that it is used to make, or it can be one big improvement.

In addition to the very informative session, there were plenty of chances to meet, greet, network, etc.  I met some really fascinating people from some big name organizations!

So, if you ever find yourself in St. Louis on the third Wednesday of the month, check out GIMA.

I came back from SES San Jose about 10 days ago. It was a great meeting, and I got a chance to catch up with a number of old networking colleagues and meet a bunch more people. Seems that the biggest show topic was Universal search and whether that would forever change the face of search engine optimization. In short, it already has. For several phrases where we keep a very close eye, we’ve seen regular “roll over” from page one results to page two when news, images or other items are introduced into the ‘natural’ search areas of Google. That is a very basic change that we’ve seen. I’ll be interested to see how Ask’s 3D search and current brand advertising will change how people find our Web sites. As it used to be said, position 5 is the new position 10 - and that can’t be more true now. When a number of additional items show in the search results, getting one or two positions higher makes a huge difference in staying on page one. But do we still care about being on page one? And for whom are we on page one? The next phase of this process is personalization. So, in addition to regular search having news, images, blog and (possibly) product results listed, we will then need to contend with the signed-in user where initial searches may (do?) affect subsequent searches in the same session. Now, if I had a choice of driving 50 people to a site that convert at 10% (5 sales), or 150 people that convert at 2% (3 sales), I would prefer to get 50 more qualified visitors. But what’s true in paid search, where one pays for each click, is not always true for natural search. Wouldn’t we want 150 people, 2% of which convert and 2% (or more) who bookmark or who then access the site directly at a later time? In doing some research on Universal Search and how people view it, I came across a really interesting white paper by Enquiro (Gordon Hotchkiss and company). I won’t provide a synopsis here, but if you are interested in eye-tracking studies of universal search pages based on the presence of images or not, it’s definitely worth downloading. They even have eye-tracking images from the new Ask interface.

Visiting Exhibits

While at SES, I also hit the tradeshow floor to gather information for our Q4 planning. I think I spoke to every media outlet there, even those with which we do business. It’s now two weeks after, and I have received five follow ups. Five. That’s got to be about 20%, maximum. In a past life, I managed tradeshows. At the end of the show, we would scramble to get leads to appropriate sales people, and HOPED that they followed up. Considering how much companies invested in exhibiting, I would think that my “exhibitee” response rate would be just a bit higher. In short, if a vendor doesn’t follow up after a show when they are explicitly told that the prospect is planning buys for the following quarter, can I trust that they will be an active partner in the buy process?

It’s been a very, very busy month and a half at Network Solutions! I’ve been hiring a great group of people to manage online advertising and SEO for the company. The team is now (for the most part) built - and still much more to do.

For as long as I have been with Network Solutions, we have used agencies to provide advertising and SEO services. My role has been to manage those relationships and to lead best practices in both those areas in the company. It’s been a great two and a half years - I’ve gotten to work with some wonderful agency people, I’ve learned a lot about driving return on investment and getting buy in from a bunch of different people.

Now, I have a new and exciting challenge: Lead two teams internally to achieve clearly stated sales goals. Having been in sales organizations before and working closely with them in different jobs, I have learned to appreciate the value of clearly stated objectives. The team I’ve drawn together are awesome, too. Aside from having made the tactical error of hiring one lead named Andy and another named Adam (they rarely get called by their correct names), they are bright, hard-working and very creative. Chrystal, who manages the PPC campaigns, is really awesome, too. She’s smart and she understands how to make PPC campaigns work.

My one challenge has been a fourth position that it took about 5 months to fill. And have since had an opportunity to learn some of the pitfalls of managing a team directly rather than working through an agency. Of course, I cannot go into details, but, suffice it to say, that has been a learning experience, too.

So, part of my extended silence has been because of multiple trips to the Midwest (we have an office there), long, LONG hours, leading two brand new teams, doing all the contracts and purchasing things that buying media directly requires, and having met an awesome guy.

Ok - so this IS a professional blog, so I won’t go too much into detail… Let’s just say that there really is true love in the world - and there really ARE great people to meet after you hit 40… Oh, I mean 33.

I wasn’t able to go to Search Insider, SES NYC, ad:tech and several other conferences. It’s been disappointing, but I am definitely attending San Jose SES and may try to make it to PubCon, too.

Since I took today off to go to Williamsburg and my schedule was delayed a day, I actually have had time to catch up on the blog. I will try to continue to submit - and next time with more meat.

A few ideas for topics include: behavioral targeting, post-impression (view-through) value on banner advertisements, tracking sales and revenue from SEO… and any interesting observation I find along the way.

Google is adding some very interesting features for people who are signed into their accounts. I don’t know if I am just a day late and a dollar short, or if there is something really new going on.

Today while I was obsessively checking positions for my main keywords, I happened to be logged into one of my Google accounts. What was interesting was that I saw a new link (or new to me) that said “Note this”. So - I did. And this dialog box showed up where I could add comments to the site that I had clicked on. Then it changed the “Note this” to say “Duly noted.”

Interesting.

Then it got more interesting. I saw where Google was showing the date and/or time and number of times that I had followed a specific link.

I was intrigued.

I logged out to see if the numbers were still there. No, they weren’t. So I logged into another one of my accounts (why have just one when more is better?). The numbers were gone from my previous account sign in. I wanted to replicate it. Clicking away, I found that the references were then GONE.

So, am I  being targeted? Is one of my many Google personalities being profiled? And does this mean that part of my split personality will start seeing personalized results?

Also, what is the SEO impact of “Noting this” - and what about the comments I can type in about the URL I have “duly noted?”

It’s obviously tagging… but what will it mean to me as a search engine user and to me as a search engine optimizer?

One of the things I do for Network Solutions is manage online advertising, much of our efforts being focused on pay per click (like that’s a surprise).

In a reorganization last year, the online advertising and SEO efforts went from being part of marketing to rolling up to sales. This may not seem to be a big stretch, but it can change the foundation of the way one approaches managing online campaigns.

Marketing: Getting as much brand awareness as possible while maximizing ROI (although in a pure marketing model, driving traffic is more important than maximizing ROI)

Sales: Selling specific types of products and maximizing revenue while maintaining a positive ROI

How does this change how you manage campaigns? Well, if you are marketing, you are more concerned with getting your message to people who need to know about your product and may influence a purchase some time soon. In a sales model, you want to get in front of people who are either ready to buy, or will buy if given the right incentive or message. In marketing, you may choose to message about differentiating benefits, intangibles like service, history, brand value or expertise. In a sales model, you are much more likely to talk about pricing, ease of purchase and funnel visitors through a page flow that gives them few options other than to take out their wallet.

Now, here is the challenge… When you have a strong brand, you can leverage it to get awareness on broader keywords, then “close the sale” on brand-based terms. This takes some patience and requires that you look at how your target audience uses keywords sequentially to identify which products are in their consideration set and then which vendor they choose. For instance, do they search on “widget,” “blue widget,” “left-handed blue widget,” then for your company at “Barney’s Widget Emporium?” If most of your purchasers start their search on “widget” (but do not buy) and then buy on your brand term, you don’t want to stop bidding on “widget” or you will lose sales.

In the previous example, a marketer would keep the phrase “widget” knowing that it is driving traffic, awareness and eventual purchases through a different term. A sales person would get rid of “widget” because (as is true with most generic terms) it’s pretty expensive and doesn’t convert, so why spend the money on it? Instead, the sales person will find every possible tail term associated with “widget” and run just those terms. Neither of these routes is bad, but they require a different focus and effort.

And talking about “killing” keywords - how long do you wait to see whether you should get rid of a “non-performing” phrase? A while ago, I went through a few quarter-end reports to model what the quarter would have looked like if I had deleted all phrases that didn’t produce a positive return. I was able to quintuple my ROI - simply by eliminating cost. However, overall revenue dropped by about 25% - and since, I had a positive ROI, what was the real benefit of killing non-productive words? Also, we ALL know that hindsight is 20/20. By modeling from end of the quarter data, I eliminated all of the expenses associated with non-performing terms. This isn’t realistic, because you don’t know what will not perform until it hasn’t performed - which means that you’ve had to spend money on it!

Next step - I did the same modeling for several subsequent quarters. What did I find? Keywords that did not perform adequately in one quarter were “stars” in another. And vice versa. In getting rid of a bunch of phrases one quarter, I would have lost a lot of revenue the next.

So, you tell me… Do you manage PPC like it is a sales vehicle or like a marketing campaign?

Apologies for not writing in the past two weeks. On receiving Lee Odden’s TopRankBlog article about blogger’s block, I realized that this is, in part, what has been happening. I love a clever article - and his to poll readers about how they approach writer’s block left me chuckling.

In addition to a sudden lack of creativity, I’ve also been working to hire several specialists. In this case, it involves traveling and working with one of our satellite offices. When the time is right, I’ll share some of my experiences with that set of activities.

In the mean time, thanks to Marie Howell, SEOBiker, for her very kind mention of this blog in her interview on Search Marketing Gurus. Marie is a delightful person - and I just WISH I could have gone to London’s SES to hang out with her on her home turf.

Search engine optimization. Here’s my elevator speech that I have (until recently) used when meeting someone for the first time and am asked the inevitable “So, what do you do?” question:

You know when you search in Google, some sites come up on the first page? Well, what I do is program sites and do a bunch of other stuff so that they come up on the first page in Google.

Ah, the easy answer days are now in the past!

This month alone I have received no fewer than five requests (two from people I don’t even know) to help me figure out how THEY can be found in Google. Unlike my esteemed colleagues who make money from finding clients, I have one and ONLY one client - and, believe me, that one is quite enough work! Since they give me a regular paycheck, do 401K matching and pay part of my health insurance, I want to keep them happy. Doing SEO volunteer work on the side just does not appeal to me! (There are other forms of volunteer work I do regularly, but this is not the venue to discuss those).

So, as I mentioned earlier - for TopRankBlog the challenge seems to be having lawyers expect “free” consultation. In my case, it seems to be that I have broken into the free services to real estate and mortgage brokers.

There has been only one exception to my free services rule… that would be for my personal trainer. She gives me hour for hour on fitness training for SEO work. That is a healthy trade, in my opinion.

The new elevator speech will be:

I do linguistic and numeric analysis work where it pertains to meta data and content creation.

Anyone else have recommendations for an incomprehensible elevator speech?

I have used Googspy.com off and on for keyword research and help with SEO on friends’ sites - and Network Solutions’ sites occasionally.

I went to Googspy.com this evening in preparing materials for the NETA presentation tomorrow - and was informed that they are no longer there… Following the link, I was directed to Spyfu.com - a new incarnation of Googspy.com (or new to me), with some very interesting new whistles.

In addition to having basic information about the keywords on which a site may be found, it also has bid, budget and other information about paid search! Of course, I checked out what they have for NetSol - but found that the data was definitely not accurate (and, no, I won’t share in which direction it was inaccurate).

It did have some interesting information about the keywords for which the site can be found in natural search - and a few that I didn’t know about.

Even for us “white-hatters”, Spyfu.com can be a useful addition to our arsenal as we re-evaluate sites for search optimization. We can make certain that we don’t lose visibility on potentially high-volume keywords.

Another good use is to see if the positioning for the keyword and the frequency of search don’t show the right amount of traffic to the site when you evaluate your log files. It may be time to look at the descriptions that show up in the SERP and rewrite them to give searchers more of a reason to click!

For those of you who want to do so, you can sign up for a free account (the site is still in beta), and be able to download a spreadsheet of the keywords and rankings for your website.

Although it was published back in August, I just found and read an article from Something Awful that was an “analysis” of the search log files accidentally released by AOL last summer. I laughed SO hard my sides hurt and tears streamed. Check it out.

The article confirms my suspicion that humans are not terribly smart…

Note to self: Next time I am in spiritual crisis, I should pose my questions to a search engine. Read the article linked above, and all will become clear.